‘Do not ask me to guess,’ returned Ethel, with a trembling lip. She was very much frightened. She had not the least experience in that science of flirtation in which the modern young lady graduates so early. But she divined that words had been said which rendered it necessary that other words should be spoken, and with what result! Could it be that the end of the interview would be the dashing down of the half-idolised image that her fancy had set up as the emblem of pure chivalry? ‘Only because I love you—love you very dearly, Ethel!’ said the heir of High Tor; and as he spoke he took her unresisting hand in his and drew her towards him. For a moment Ethel was spellbound, her whole faculties absorbed in the one fact that he had told her that he loved her. Come what might, those words—those dear delicious words had sunk into her ear, and the memory of them must remain to the end of what would very likely be a lonely, loveless life; a treasure, her very own, of which none could rob her! But in the next minute Ethel drew her hand away from the hand that held it, and the crimson of indignant anger mounted to her cheek. ‘My lord,’ she said, in a voice that all her wish to speak and act calmly could not render quite steady, ‘you should not have done this. I could not have believed it of you. It is not generous. It is not like yourself.’ ‘Why not?’ Lord Harrogate blundered out the words awkwardly enough; but Ethel misunderstood him. ‘Because,’ she said firmly, ‘my position beneath your mother’s roof, in its very lowliness, ought to have been my protection from insult, which’—— ‘Insult!’ flashed out Lord Harrogate, reddening too, and breaking almost roughly in on the girl’s half-uttered speech. ‘Can you deem that I mean to insult you when I tell you of my love—that I speak insolently, Miss Gray, when I ask you to be my wife?’ Ethel quivered from head to foot as her half-incredulous ears drank in the words. ‘You meant—that is’—— she faltered out feebly. ‘I meant this,’ said Lord Harrogate earnestly. ‘Miss Gray—Ethel, darling, I have learned during the time that I have known you, to love you with a true and honest love. I am a clumsy wooer, I daresay, but surely you cannot have deemed that I had any other thought than that of asking you, for weal and woe, to share my fortunes?’ He tried to take her hand; but she eluded his grasp, and covering her face, sobbed aloud. ‘Come, Ethel, come, my love! Let it be mine to dry those tears!’ said the young man, passing his arm round her waist; but gently and firmly she released herself.