"What is it?" she said. "Oh, I mustn't stay; you mustn't keep me. I only came because I was so frightened; _she_ might see you making signs. I wish you wouldn't make signs like that. If any one saw you, oh, what would become of me?" "It would not do you any harm," said Roger, "for I know what you would do, Lily. You would simply cast me off and pretend to know nothing about me. You know that is what you would do." "Oh, but it would be quite true. What do I know about you? I know you are young Mr Ridley, a gentleman, far, oh, far above me. All the world knows that; and I don't know what I know more." "You know I love you, Lily, which is what no one knows but you." "Oh," she said, with a toss of her head, "I am not so sure about that. I know what you say; but what young men say and what they feel is very different." "Who taught you that, Lily? Can you look at me, and then tell me that you think I don't feel what I say?" "Oh, as for that--but every book you ever open says so, and all the old people say so; they ought to know. Never believe a lad, Miss Prentice says--and far more when it's a gentleman." "Did you get my letter, Lily?" "Oh, yes, I got your letter; I couldn't quite read it all. Did you ever learn to write, Mr Ridley? or is it taught in the grand schools? For a long time I couldn't tell who sent it," said Lily, telling her little fib with a steady look at him, and all the innocence in the world. "Then I suppose heaps of other people write you letters like that?" Lily laughed with malice and enjoyment of the fun. "Did you think that you were the only one that ever said he cared for me?" she said, with merry scorn. As for Roger, he was quite desperate, and did not know how to meet this levity, which broke his heart. "You should not take it so easily," he said, "for Lily, but for--Providence--it would have been the last letter I ever wrote to you or any one. I was as nearly as possible killed to-day." She gave a little cry, her face paled and reddened, and she clasped her hands together. This encouraged him to go on, which he did in that tearful solemn tone with which a man represents himself as an object of sympathy when he is very anxious to make a tender impression and very doubtful of his success. "I was climbing the old tower to show a stranger the way, and put my foot by accident upon a bit of the wall that would not bear me; and there would have been an end of me, Lily, and of all my love and all our meetings. I don't think you would have minded a bit: you would have gone on with some one else, and thought nothing more of Roger Ridley. You would have----" "Oh, never mind what I would have done!" she said, stamping her foot; "that's best known to me. What happened then? what happened then? that's what I want to know." "You see, I was saved! What with the other man, and what with throwing myself into the corner as I fell----"