“You wanted to know why I hung on at Ottinge, with little or nothing to do?” and he paused. “I think you do know, Miss Morven, in fact, I’m sure you know. I’d be only too glad to speak out, but my hands and tongue are tied. I’ve given a promise I’m bound to keep, and between you and my absolute confidence, there stands at present an enormous obstacle.” “Oh!” “I ought to tell you that I’m not what I seem.” “Of course,” with a touch of impatience, “you are a gentleman by birth; I’ve always known that.” “Nor am I here in my own name--only my christian name; but I’ve never done anything to disgrace it, I give you my word of honour.” As he came to a halt and faced her, and the setting sun shone into his truthful eyes and touched his crisp brown locks, the glow of the evening air seemed to give added force to his personality. “I’ve played the fool--the silly ass--and I’ve got to pay. How I wish I might talk to you openly, and tell you all about myself!” “I wish you might,” repeated the girl, and her voice shook; an emotional tension had crept into the situation--her pulses beat wildly, and her mind was in a tumult. “You cannot imagine what it is to be in my fix,” he continued, speaking with low, passionate intensity; “for months and months to love some one with all my soul, and never be able to open my lips.” “It must be trying,” she answered, now moving on, with her eyes on the ground. “And when I’m free, I may be too late!” he said gloomily. “You may,” she assented; “for how could some one guess?” “That’s it! That is what is the awful part of the whole thing; but, look here, Miss Morven, let me state a case. Supposing you knew a fellow in such a hole, and felt that you cared for him, and could trust him and stick to him, as it were, blindly for a time; supposing he were your social equal, and had a clean record, and that you knew he worshipped your very shadow--would”--and here he looked straight into her face--“_you_ wait?” To this question, impetuously delivered, there followed a silence. “This is a sort of problem, isn’t it?” she faltered at last, “like the Hard Cases in Vanity Fair?” “No, by Jove, part of it is God’s truth! but I’m only talking like an idiot. Of course no girl that ever was born could do it.” “I’m not so sure,” she murmured, with her eyes on the ground, her heart beating in hurried thumps. “Miss Morven--Aurea,” he went on, now moved out of all discretion, and casting self-control to the winds, “you are the only girl I’ve ever cared for in all my life. I fell in love with you the first moment I ever saw you, when you danced with Mackenzie in the Manor drawing-room. This meeting to-day has been the one good turn luck has done me in three years--and I seize upon it perhaps unlawfully; perhaps it’s not just cricket, my talking to you in this way, but it’s my only chance, so I snatch it, for I may never see you alone again--and all is fair in love and war.”