"Yes, the one woman out of all the wide world whom, uncounted ages ago, it was fated, or fore-ordained, that I should love." "Now you are going further than I can follow you," said Miriam, with a smile. "Perhaps, at the same time, it was fore-ordained that I should reject your suit." "You do not know how terribly in earnest I am, or you would not laugh at me." "Indeed, Mr. Van Duren, I am not laughing at you. But pray resume your seat." "Not till you have told me the best or the worst. Not till you have given me some word of hope, or told me that I must never hope again." "Mr. Van Duren," said Miriam, with more earnestness than she had yet used, "your offer has come upon me so suddenly that I know not what to say. I think you can hardly expect me to give you an answer to so serious a question without giving me time to consider what that answer must be. Not now, not to-night--can I answer you either one way or the other. Two or three days at the least I must claim, to think over all that you have said to me, and to discover, if it be possible for me to do so, what my feelings are in a matter that concerns my future welfare so closely." "I can but bow to your decision," said Van Duren. "I hope I may accept it as a good augury that you have not rejected my suit at once and entirely; that you have deemed it worthy of being taken into consideration." "Ah, Mr. Van Duren, I am afraid that you are not such a novice as you would wish to make out: I am afraid that you understand more of our sex and their ways than you would care to have known." Then, as if to change the subject, she took up her guitar and began to play. A little while later Van Duren took his leave. "Very well managed, my dear," said Mr. Byrne, approvingly, wheeling round his chair as soon as the door was closed upon their visitor; "only neither of you seemed to think much about me in the matter." "I suppose Mr. Van Duren thinks that if he can obtain my consent, yours will follow as a matter of course." "He is welcome to think what he likes, so long as you succeed in getting out of him the particular information that I want. So far, all has gone off well. In three days' time you will accept him provisionally--accept him on trial, that is, for a month or six weeks, before finally binding yourself to anything. In the course of that month you ought to be able to worm out of him the all-important secret, without which all that we have done up to the present time will be of no avail whatever." "I understand perfectly what you want, papa, but I cannot tell you how utterly distasteful to me is the whole wretched business." "Tut, tut, girl, you mustn't talk in that way! Think of the two hundred pounds that will be yours--absolutely your own--if we succeed."