A flush came over the curate’s face, of ingenuous pleasure and satisfaction. He liked her to know that he was capable of any sacrifice to save his flock. ‘It is quite true,’ he said. ‘I was quite ready, and had made up my mind to do it; for how can I ask my people to give up what I don’t give up myself?’ ‘But why did you choose poor old Mrs. Lloyd? It did her no harm, her little drop of beer.’ ‘Every drop of beer does harm, in a community like this, scourged by that vice----’ ‘Mr. Osborne,’ said Florence timidly. ‘Yes,’ he said, bending towards her, ‘you were going to say something.’ ‘I want to say something; but, oh, I don’t know whether I ought, I don’t know whether I may.’ The curate trembled, too, as much as she did. They were in a quiet road, with nobody in sight. He put his hand suddenly upon hers with a hurried, tremulous pressure. ‘There is nothing you ought not to say to me,’ he said. ‘Nothing, nothing that I will not gladly hear. If you should reprove me, even, it would be as a precious balm--whatever, whatever you will say!’ There was a little pause, and it was very still all about, a bird or two trilling in the half-clothed trees, not a harsher sound to disturb the two young creatures, there standing at the crisis of their lives. ‘But first,’ he said, ‘first let me say something to you----’ ‘No,’ said Florence, ‘no, that was not what I meant, not now--I had something to say. Mr. Osborne, listen. If, instead of an old woman, and her a good old woman that did no harm, it were a man, a boy, a gentleman, that you could have held out your hand to--oh, not to make him take pledges and things! and perhaps, you, hearing of him, thought him no company for you. But if you could have turned him away from harm to go with you; if you had suffered his society, not approving of it, because your society might have saved him; if you had thought to yourself that to be your companion might have been everything for him, and that to make him do things with you, and almost live with you, though you might not like it, would have made life another thing to him. Oh, Mr. Osborne, would not that have been a better way?’ Her eyes were so full of tears that she could not see him, but when he spoke she heard a sound in his voice which made her start and turn hastily to where the man who was almost her accepted lover, who had the words on his lips that were to bind them for ever, stood. The music and the softness had altogether gone out of these staccato tones. ‘Miss Plowden,’ he said, as if a sudden gulf had come between them over which his voice sounded far away, ‘I will not even ask what you mean. I should feel myself a most presumptuous intruder, and impertinent---- Good morning. I find I have not so much time as I thought for this roundabout way.’ XXII