ventured to speak to Mr. Cardew merely because he was alone, and Mrs. Cardew would not have interrupted them, for they would have gone further afield. Tom's appearance even was not an accident, but a thread carefully woven, one may say, in the web that night. "I saw you at church to-night, Miss Catharine," said Tom, as they walked homewards. "Why did you go? You do not usually go to church." "I thought I should like to hear Mr. Cardew, and I am very glad I went." "Are you? What did you think of him? Did you like him?" "Oh, yes; it was all true; but what he said about Christ the Mediator was so clearly put." "You did not care for the rest then?" "I did indeed, Miss Catharine, but it is just the same with our minister; I get along with him so much better when he seems to follow the catechism, but"--he looked up in her face--"I know that is not what you cared for. Oh, Miss Catharine," he cried suddenly, and quite altering his voice and manner, "I do not know when I shall have another chance; I hardly dare tell you; you won't spurn me, will you? My father was a poor workman; I was nothing better, and should have been nothing better if it had not been for you; all my schooling almost I have done myself; I know nothing compared with what you know; but, Miss Catharine, I love you to madness: I have loved no woman but you; never looked at one, I may say. Do you remember when you rode home with me from Chapel Farm? I have lived on it ever since. You are far above me: things come and speak to you which I don't see. If you would teach me I should soon see them too." Catharine was silent, and perfectly calm. At last she said-- "My dear Tom." Tom shuddered at the tone. "No, Miss Catharine, don't say it now; think a little; don't cast me off in a moment." "My dear Tom, I may as well say it now, for what I ought to say is as clear as that moon in the sky. I can _never_ love you as a wife ought to love her husband." "Oh, Miss Catharine! you despise me, you despise me! Why in God's name?" Tom rose above himself, and became such another self that Catharine was amazed and half staggered. "Why in God's name did He make you and me after such a fashion, that you are the one person in the world able to save me, and you cannot! Why did He do this! Why did He put me where I saw you every day and torment me with the hope of you, knowing that you would have nothing to do with me! He maimed my father and made him a beggar: He prevented me from learning what would have made me fit for you, and then He drove me to worship you. Do not say 'never'!" They were close to her father's door at the Terrace. She stopped, looked at him sadly, but decisively, straight in the face, and said-- "Never! never! Never your lover, but your best friend for ever," and she opened the gate and disappeared. CHAPTER XIII