‘Yes, a fellow I was foolish enough to let my place to when I came of age—seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years. He’s keeping it up uncommonly well, I’m told; has put up a good deal of glass in the kitchen-garden, and so on, and improved the farm-buildings. But he shall go. He’s on for his fourteen years; so I can’t give him notice to quit, but I can offer him a tempting price for the lease. I daresay he’s tired of the place by this time. People always do get tired of their places.’ ‘But what can you want with a great place like that?’ asked Janet. ‘I don’t know. Didn’t you say you were fond of this part of the country?’ asked Geoffrey, in some confusion. Those cups of orange pekoe had proved far more intoxicating than the vintages of Rhineland. ‘O, Mr. Hossack, pray do not let _my_ fancies influence your life!’ said Janet earnestly. ‘Remember we may never be more to each other than we are now,—very good friends, who may meet once in a way, at some chance turn in life’s road.’ Geoffrey pleaded his hardest, but felt that he was pleading in vain. All arguments were futile. Honour counselled Janet to be firm, and she was steadfast as a rock. ‘I will not tell you that you are indifferent to me,’ she said, in her low sweet voice, unembarrassed by the presence of the child, who was absorbed in the antics of her kitten, and troubled herself in no manner about what Mr. Hossack might be saying to her mother, and presently, having eaten to repletion, roamed out into the garden among the clove-carnations and late roses and tall gaudy hollyhocks. ‘That would be too ungrateful, after all the trouble you have taken for my sake. I can only say that, until I have proof positive of my first husband’s death, I shall continue to consider myself bound to him.’ ‘But what stronger proof can you hope for than my assurance of the fact? Remember that Mr. Vandeleur perished in a solitude where there are no registrars to take note of a man’s death, no coroner to hold an inquest on his body, no undertakers to give him decent burial; where a rough-and-ready grave under the pine-trees would be the sole witness of his end.’ ‘We will trust in Providence, Mr. Hossack,’ answered Janet, with that steadfast look he knew so well, and which made her seem a creature so far above him—a being exempt from common temptations and human passions. ‘If my husband died as you tell me he died, I do not doubt that in due time there will arise some confirmation of your story.’ Geoffrey sighed, and shrugged his shoulders. ‘If the pine-trees or the songless birds of the wilderness could talk, you might receive such confirmation,’ he said; ‘but from any other source it is impossible.’ ‘Why, my brother was with you all the time, was he not?’ inquired Janet, with a wondering look. ‘He at least must be able to vouch for the truth of your story.’ Geoffrey grew deadly pale, and for a few moments was speechless.