‘Captain Penwyn came to me one day, just before the Michaelmas holidays—it was about a year after Muriel had gone home for good—and asked me for half an hour’s private talk. Well do I remember that calm September afternoon, and his bright, eager face as he walked up and down together in the garden at Seacomb, by the sunny wall, where the last of the figs and plums were ripening. He told me he was madly in love with Muriel Trevanard—deeper in love than he had ever been in his life—in fact, it was the one true passion of his life. “I may have fancied myself in love before,” he said, “but this is reality.” I tried to laugh him out of his fancy, reminded him of the difference in station between himself and a tenant farmer’s daughter; asked him what his father would say to such an infatuation. “That’s what I’m here to talk about,” said George. “You know what my father is, and that I might just as well try to turn the course of those two rivers we used to read about when you were grinding me as to turn my father from his purpose. He has made up his mind that I am to marry land—he dreams of land, sleeping and waking—and spends half his time in calculating the number of his acres. If I refuse to marry land he will disinherit me, and one of my younger brothers will get Penwyn. Now you know how fond I am of Penwyn, and how fond all the people round Penwyn are of me; and you may imagine that it would be rather a hard blow for me to lose an estate which I have always looked upon as my birthright.” ‘“I should think so, indeed,” said I. ‘“But I love Muriel Trevanard better than house or land,” replied he, “and I would rather lose all than lose her.”’ ‘What did you say to this?’ asked Maurice. ‘I told him that he was simply mad to think about Muriel, except as he might of a beautiful picture which he had seen in a gallery. But I might as well have reasoned with the wind. He had made up his mind that life without Muriel wasn’t worth having. If ever I saw passionate, reckless, all-absorbing love in my life, I saw it in him. Nothing would content him but that Muriel and he should be married before he went abroad with his regiment. He only wanted the tie, the certainty that nothing less than death could part them. He would ask no more than that she should be legally his wife, and would wait a fitting time to take her away from her father’s house, and proclaim his marriage to the world. Nothing would be gained by my repeating the arguments I used. They were of no avail. He held to his foolish romantic purpose of calling Muriel his wife before he left England. “I shall only be away a year or two,” he said, “and who knows but I may gain a shred of reputation before I come back—return full major, perhaps, and be able to soften my father’s flinty heart?” He told me that he wanted my help, but if I refused it the marriage would take place all the same. He would not leave England until he had made Muriel his own.’ ‘And you consented to help him?’