“In part, I can. But not altogether. Will you explain? I—I think,” she continued with a movement of her flower-like head, that for gentle dignity he had never seen excelled, “I have a right to an explanation.” “You know of what Sir Robert accused me?” “Yes.” “Am I to justify him? You know what was the difference which came between us, which first divided us? And what I thought right then, I still think right. Am I to abandon it? You know what I bore. Am I to live on the bounty of one who once thought so ill of me, and may think as ill again? Of one who, differing from me, punished me so cruelly? Am I to sink into dependence, to sacrifice my judgment, to surrender my political liberty into the hands of one who——” “Of my father!” she said gravely. He could not, so reminded, say what he had been going to say, but he assented by a movement of the head. And after an interval of silence, “I cannot,” he cried passionately, “I cannot, even to secure my happiness, run that risk!” She looked from the window of the carriage, and in a voice which shook a little, “No,” she said, “I suppose not.” He was silent and he suffered. He dared not meet her eyes. Why had she sought this interview? Why had she chosen to torment him? Ah, if she knew, if she only knew what pain she was inflicting upon him! But apparently she did not know. For by and by she spoke again. “No,” she said. “I suppose not. Yet have you thought”—and now there was a more decided tremor in her voice—“that that which you surrender is not all there is at stake? Your independence is precious to you, and you have a right, Mr. Vaughan, to purchase it even at the cost of your happiness. But have you a right to purchase it at the cost of another’s? At the cost of mine? Have you thought of my happiness?” she continued, “or only of yours—and of yourself? To save your independence—shall I say, to save your pride?—you are willing to set your love aside. But have you asked me whether I am willing to pay my half of the price? My heavier half? Whether I am willing to set my happiness aside? Have you thought of—me at all?” If he had not, then, when he saw how she looked at him, with what eyes, with what love, as she laid her hand on his arm, he had been more than man if he had resisted her long! But he still fought with himself, and with her; staring with hard, flushed face straight before him, telling himself that by all that was left to him he must hold. “I think, I think,” she said gently, yet with dignity, “you have not thought of me.” “But your father—Sir Robert——” “He is an ogre, of course,” she cried in a tone suddenly changed. “But you should have thought of that before, sir,” she continued, tears and laughter in her voice. “Before you travelled with me on the coach! Before you saved my life! Before you—looked at me! For you can never take it back. You can never give me myself again. I think that you must take me!”