I don’t know if it was this conversation which made Fred Huntley so over-bold; but in the evening he spoke as he had never yet ventured to speak. It was the evening which John spent in his dismal little parlour, weary, and wrapt in the stillness of despair, writing his letters before he went home. At Fernwood the young people had got up an impromptu dance. There were a few people to dinner from some of the neighbouring houses, and this infusion of novelty stimulated the home party. And the wind had changed, and all the frost in the air had disappeared, or at least so the foolish boys and girls, heated with dancing, chose to believe; and they had opened the door of the conservatory, and even strayed out into the moonlight between the dances, without paying the least attention to any warning. However strong the reasons had been which led Kate to decline all private conversation with Fred Huntley, she could not possibly refuse to dance with him, nor could she refuse to take a turn with him through the conservatory, as all the others were doing. And it was there, in the semidark, with the moonlight shining in through the dark plants and unseen flowers, that he spoke out, no longer making use of any parable. He told her in so many words that he was a more fit mate for her than John. He argued the question with her, point by point, for Kate was not wise enough to take refuge in a distinct, unexplained No, but went on the foolish idea that he was her friend, and John’s friend, and that she ought to convince him that he was wrong. “Oh don’t!” she said, “please, don’t. We have always been such friends. Why should you break it all off and make me a kind of an enemy now at the last? You never used to care for me in that way. Oh, please, let us forget it was ever said.” “But I cannot forget it, though you may, Kate,” he said, in a voice which was so full of feeling that Kate’s curiosity was vividly awakened: (I never thought he would have felt anything so much, she said to herself, flattered and wondering; and rather anxious to know how far this unlooked-for sentiment would carry him). “Kate, we can’t go on just being friends. If you knew what I have suffered to see you belonging to another man! I have not a word to say against him. No, I hate him for your sake; but there is not a word to be said against him. The only thing I wonder is, how a fellow so honourable and high-minded should have asked you when he knew he had nothing to offer you. It would have been more like John Mitford to have broken his heart and held his peace.” A strange little cry came from Kate’s lips. “Oh!” she said, with a startled look in his face, “how strange that you should be trying to undermine him, and yet know him so well as that!”