Was not this a golden opportunity? Did she hear the grating of that accursed rake just round the laurel-bush? Could that be why her blue eyes shone so soft and kind, why the words dropped from her rosy mouth like honey from the comb? The gravel-walk (lately raked, and be hanged to it!) was rough as Brighton shingle; his trousers were of the thinnest fabric known to Messrs. Miles; yet I confidently believe Goldthred would have popped down on his knees, then and there, to run that one great chance he dwelt on night and day, but for the additional step that brought them face to face with a gardener working leisurely, in rolled-up shirt-sleeves, and surrounded by the implements of his art. Goldthred swore, I fear, though not aloud. The happy moment had slipped through his fingers like running-water, like the sands of time, like change for a sovereign, like everything else in a world that "keeps moving," whether we will or no. Of all impossibilities, there is none so impossible as to put the clock back. Beyond this inopportune gardener, they came in sight of certain haymakers, and turning from these were close to the house once more. No further explanation was practicable, but unless some tacit agreement had been made to the lady's satisfaction, she would hardly have pushed her roses in the gentleman's face, with a sweet smile and a recommendation to inhale their fragrance while they were fresh. "You deserve them all, indeed you do!" she said warmly. "And I'll put the best of them on your dressing-table myself. Thank you _really_. You won't forget your promise? I know I can depend upon _you_." Then she marched into the drawing-room laden with her spoils, well pleased; while Goldthred, retiring to smoke the morning cigar, felt less satisfied, on reflection, than he had been when the white fingers and red roses were so close to his lips a while ago. It seems that in all couples, not excepting the matrimonially tethered, a pair must necessarily pull different ways. Goldthred's innocent notion of heaven upon earth was that this despotic lady should become his wife, but she had handled him so skilfully, he dared not ask for fear of being refused. Mrs. Lascelles, who deserved some credit for crushing down the instinct of appropriation, natural to all women, however little they may prize an admirer, would have been glad, to do her justice, that Helen, for her own sake, should make an advantageous marriage. She reflected, moreover, that her furtherance of such an arrangement would bring her into closer relations with Sir Henry. Then she wondered whether she still liked him, confessing in her secret heart she was almost afraid she _did_.