"I wish, Arden, I stood as little in need of your advice as you do, it seems, of mine," said Longcluse suddenly, after a short silence. His dark eyes were fixed on Richard Arden's. "I have been fifty times on the point of making a confession to you, and my heart has failed me. The hour is coming. These things won't wait. I must speak, Arden, soon or never--_very_ soon, or never. _Never_, perhaps, would be wisest." "Speak _now_, on the contrary," said Arden, laying down his knife and fork, and leaning back. "Now is the best time always. If it's a bad thing, why, it's over; and if it's a good one, the sooner we have it the better." Longcluse rose, looking down in meditation, and in silence walked slowly to the window, where, for a time, without speaking he stood in a reverie. Then, looking up, he said, "No man likes a crisis. 'No good general ever fights a pitched battle if he can help it.' Wasn't that Napoleon's saying? No man who has not lost his head likes to get together all he has on earth, and make one stake of it. I have been on the point of speaking to you often. I have always recoiled." "Here I am, my dear Longcluse," said Richard Arden, rising and following him to the window, "ready to hear you. I ought to say, only too happy if I can be of the least use." "Immense! everything?" said Longcluse vehemently. "And yet I don't know how to ask you--how to begin--so much depends. Don't you conjecture the subject?" "Well, perhaps I do--perhaps I don't. Give me some clue." "Have you formed no conjecture?" asked Longcluse. "Perhaps." "Is it anything in any way connected with your sister, Miss Arden?" "It may be, possibly." "Say what you think, Arden, I beseech you." "Well, I think, perhaps, you admire her." "Do I? Do I? Is that all? Would to God I could say that is all! Admiration, what is it?--Nothing. Love?--Nothing. Mine is adoration and utter madness. I have told my secret. What do you say? Do you hate me for it?" "Hate you, my dear fellow! Why on earth should I hate you? On the contrary, I ought, I think, to like you better. I'm only a little surprised that your feelings should so much exceed anything I could have supposed." "Yesterday, Arden, you spoke as if you liked me. As we drove into that place, I fancied you half understood me; and cheered by what you then said, I have spoken that which might have died with me, but for that." "Well, what's the matter? My dear Longcluse, you talk as if I had shown signs of wavering friendship. Have I? Quite the contrary." "Quite the contrary, that is true," said Longcluse eagerly. "Yes, you _should_ like me better for it--that is true also. Yours is no wavering friendship, I'm sure of it. Let us shake hands upon it. A treaty, Arden, a treaty!" With a fierce smile upon his pale face, and a sudden fire in his eyes, he extended his hand energetically, and took that of Arden, who answered the invitation with a look in which gleamed faintly something of amusement.