“I don’t want to know about your people. We’re you and I. We’re Mary and Rupert.” “Yes. But we’re Mary Bradshaw and Rupert Hepplestall.” With that, she thought, she slaughtered hope, not his alone but something that grew in her, something she was thinking of as hope because she dared not think of it as love. Now she need no longer think of it at all; she had killed it; she had met his candor with her candor, she had announced herself a Bradshaw. It was the death of hope. Suffering herself but compassionate for the pain she must have given him, she raised her eyes to his. And the response to a lady martyring herself to truth was an indulgent smile and maddening misapprehension. “Is there anything in that? Bradshaw instead of Arden? Surely it’s usual to have a stage-name.” “You haven’t understood. When I pretend to be Lancashire on the stage, I don’t pretend. Is that clear?” It irked him that he couldn’t say, “As mud.” She was too passionately in earnest for him to dare the flippancies. He said, “Yes, that’s clear.” “And Staithley in particular. I’m Staithley born and bred. Bred, I’m telling you, in Staithley Streets. My name’s Bradshaw.” He lashed his memory, aware dimly that Bradshaw had associations for him other than the railway-guide. It was coming to him now. The Staithley Bradshaws, that sixteenth birthday interview with his father, his own disparaging of Tom Bradshaw and Sir Philip’s defense of him. His father had been right, too. Tom was in some office under the Coalition, pulling his weight like all the rest. The war had proved his sportsmanship, as it had everybody’s. He hadn’t a doubt that any of the Staithley Bradshaws who were in the army were splendid soldiers. In the ranks, though. One thought twice about marrying their sister. He wished she hadn’t told him, and as he wished it she was emphasizing, “I’m from the Begging Bradshaws.” He forced a smile. “You’re a long way from them, then,” he said, and she agreed on that. “Oh, yes,” she said, “I’m eight years from them. I don’t know them and they don’t know me. I’m Mary Arden to every one but you: only when you say your idea of love is finding comfort in my arms, I had to tell you just whose arms they are. I’m Bradshaw and I’ve sung for pennies in the Staithley Streets.” Some of the implications he did not perceive at once, but he saw the one that mattered. His sphinx had spoken now. She “had” to tell him, and there were only two reasons why. The first was that she loved him, and the second was that she was honest in her love--“Mary,” he said, “you’ll marry me.” “No.” “If you want arguments about a thing that’s settled, I’ll give you them,” he said. “You don’t know what a gift you’ve brought me. You don’t know how magnificently it suits me that you’re Bradshaw.”