“Miss Granger,” he answered, “there is between us that which will always entitle us to mutual respect and confidence—the link of life and death. Had it not been for you, I should not sit here to listen to your confidence to-day. You may tell me that a mere natural impulse prompted you to do what you did. I know better. It was your will that triumphed over your natural impulse towards self-preservation. Well, I will say no more about it, except this: If ever a man was bound to a woman by ties of gratitude and respect, I am bound to you. You need not fear that I shall take advantage of or misinterpret your confidence.” Here he rose and stood before her, his dark handsome face bowed in proud humility. “Miss Granger, I look upon it as an honour done to me by one whom henceforth I must reverence among all women. The life you gave back to me, and the intelligence which directs it, are in duty bound to you, and I shall not forget the debt.” Beatrice listened to his words, spoken in that deep and earnest voice, which in after years became so familiar to Her Majesty’s judges and to Parliament—listened with a new sense of pleasure rising in her heart. She was this man’s equal; what he could dare, she could dare; where he could climb, she could follow—ay, and if need be, show the path, and she felt that he acknowledged it. In his sight she was something more than a handsome girl to be admired and deferred to for her beauty’s sake. He had placed her on another level—one, perhaps, that few women would have wished to occupy. But Beatrice was thankful to him. It was the first taste of supremacy that she had ever known. It is something to stir the proud heart of such a woman as Beatrice, in that moment when for the first time she feels herself a conqueror, victorious, not through the vulgar advantage of her sex, not by the submission of man’s coarser sense, but rather by the overbalancing weight of mind. “Do you know,” she said, suddenly looking up, “you make me very proud,” and she stretched out her hand to him. He took it, and, bending, touched it with his lips. There was no possibility of misinterpreting the action, and though she coloured a little—for, till then, no man had even kissed the tip of her finger—she did not misinterpret it. It was an act of homage, and that was all. And so they sealed the compact of their perfect friendship for ever and a day. Then came a moment’s silence. It was Geoffrey who broke it. “Miss Granger,” he said, “will you allow me to preach you a lecture, a very short one?” “Go on,” she said.