Despite his remorse, a cold shiver runs down Burgoyne's spine at the picture that rises, conjured up with too much distinctness by her words, before his mind's eyes; the picture of a snug Bayswater villa, with a picturesque parlour-maid, or the alternative cottage in some dreary Wiltshire or Dorsetshire village, with a shrubbery of three aucuba bushes, and a kitchen-garden of half an acre. It may be that, her frame being in such close proximity to his, she feels the influence of his shiver, and that it suggests her next sentence, which is in a less sanguine key. "But it would not be fair; it would be asking you to give up too much." The meek abnegation of her rather worn voice brings his remorse uppermost again on the revolving wheel of his feelings. "Is not it my turn to give up something?" he asks tenderly; "and besides, it is time for me to settle! I am--I am tired of wandering!" As this atrocious lie passes his lips, he catches his breath. Tired of the Sierras! Tired of the bivouacs among the dazzling snow! Tired of the august silence of the ever-lasting hills! Heaven forgive him for saying so! Perhaps there is no great air of veracity in his assertion, for she looks at him distrustfully; so distrustfully that he reshapes his phrase: "At least, if I am not, I ought to be!" But still she gazes at him with a wistful and doubting intentness. "If I could only believe that that was true!" "It is true," replies he, evading her look; "at least, true enough for all working purposes; we all know that life is a series of compromises, a balancing of gain and loss. I shall lose something, I do not deny that, but I gain more--I gain _you_!" "That is such a mighty gain, is it not?" she says with a melancholy smile, as that intuition of the truth which sometimes comes to unloved or tepidly loved women flashes upon her. "A matter of taste--a mere matter of taste!" rejoins he hurriedly; aware of the unreal ring in his own words, and trying, with all his might, to feel as well as speak light-heartedly. She shakes her head in a way which tells him how poorly he has succeeded. In a desperate if not very well-judged attempt to convince her of his sincerity, his next speech is uttered. "Why should not we be married at once? to-morrow? the day after to-morrow? at the Consulate--of course there _is_ a Consulate--or the English church; I suppose there are half a dozen English churches. Why not? We have nothing to wait for, and we are both of age!"