He gives another sigh, a long, low sigh of happiness this time, and turning, wordless at first, clasps her two soft hands--hands no longer claimed by any little dimpled imperative fingers--in his. She leaves them peaceably to him; but the variations of her colour from red to white, and back from white to splendid red, sufficiently tell him that though she is nearly twenty-three years old, to her a long lover's look, a close lover's clasp, are unfamiliar things. His heart bounds at the thought; but at the same moment is pierced by an arrow of pain. On what an inequality are they meeting! It is all new to her; while to him! Oh that he had but God's great gift of erasure! that he could sponge out from his life those other looks and clasps! that he could bring to her such eyes, such a heart, such a hand as she is bringing him! How, save through his own giving to her, could Lily Harborough have had the power to poison these, his fairest moments? 'Will they be here all afternoon?' he asks under his breath. 'I think it is more than probable,' she answers in the same key, while right under his eye, over her cheeks, the lovely carnations and lilies are chasing and dispossessing each other. It is part of his punishment, perhaps, that across his mind, as he looks, there flashes a recollection of Betty's paint; a comparison that he hates, and that yet he cannot avoid, between that colour and this. Which is brightest? 'Could not you send them away?' 'Lily would not go,' replies Peggy, with a slight shrug. 'And as for him, poor little fellow, I cannot bear to be unkind to him, when he is only just out of the jaws of death. Did you know that he had been at death's door?' 'Yes, I knew,' he answers briefly. At this reply there comes, or at least it seems to him that there comes, a tiny cloud over the clear blue heaven of her eye; and seeing it, he hastens on: 'Is there no place where we can escape from them--where we can be by ourselves? Oh, Peggy, Peggy! do you think that I came down from London to talk to Lily Harborough?' The cloud stirs a little, but does not altogether remove. 'Did you know that they were here?' 'I! of course not! How should I?' A passer-by along the road, throwing in a casual glance between the bars of the gate, gives her a pretext for sliding her hands out of his. It strikes him that she is over-ready to avail herself of it. 'Do they ever go to church in the afternoon?' he asks, catching at this last straw. A faint ripple of amusement steals over her lips. 'Never.'