"Could _I_--bring it back?" Her voice still shook, but she lifted her eyes bravely to look into his face, and he bent nearer to her, and gathered both her hands into his. "Little Christina," he said. "I don't know whether it is fair, even to think of asking you to spend your fresh young life in bringing sunshine back to mine, but--because I am a selfish brute--because--I--want you--I am going to ask you what I believe I have no right to ask you. And yet--it was Margaret's thought, too--Margaret's wish," he added, under his breath. "Aunt Margaret's wish!" the girl exclaimed. "That I--that you----" She broke off confusedly, trying instinctively to draw her hands from his, but feeling his clasp tighten over them. "Shall I tell you what she said to me about you the very last time I saw her?" he asked. "I think she knew I was going to be very lonely, and she spoke of you. I have not forgotten the actual words she used; they came back to me just now, as I sat here beside you; she said: 'She would make a man who cared for her, a most tender and loving wife. She has a sweet, strong soul.'" More and more vividly the colour deepened on Christina's face, and she did not answer, because speech at that moment was a physical impossibility. Only her hands lay passive in his grasp, she no longer tried to draw them away. "I think Margaret knew--how I should learn to need you," Rupert went on, his voice vibrating along the girl's nerves, and sending little thrills of happiness through her whole being. "She understood how much you could help me, if you would." "_If I would?_" she echoed, a tremulous gladness in her voice. "But--I--am so young, so ignorant, not a bit worthy of--of all you say," she ended incoherently. "Could you some day learn to care for me, if I tried to make you care?" was his answer. "Could you--some day--care for an old fellow like me, who hasn't even the best of his life and love to offer you? Could you do that, little girl?" "I don't call you an old fellow," she said indignantly; "and--I--don't think--I have got to learn to care. I--think--I have--learnt--already." Very gently, with a sort of tender reverence, he drew her into his arms and kissed her, then put her away from him again, and said quietly-- "Is it fair to you, I wonder; is it fair to you to take all your best, and give you only the second best in return?" "But if I would rather have your second best, than the best from any other man in the world?" she said quickly. "What then? If it is a greater joy to me to think of being your rest and sunshine, than to be anything else in the world; what then?" She put her hands upon his shoulders, pushing him a little further from her, that she might look fully into his eyes. "I don't believe any man really ever understands a woman," she added, inconsequently, with a laugh. "Where have you learnt your knowledge of mankind?" he questioned; "and what makes you say we don't understand the other half of the world?"