'Nelly, I won't deceive you! I love you! You are everything to me. It seems as if I had never been happy--never known what happiness could possibly mean till I knew you. To come here every week--to see you like this for these few hours--it changes everything--it sweetens everything--because you are in my heart--because I have the hope--that some day----' She withdrew her hand and covered her face. 'Oh, it's my fault--my fault!' she said, incoherently--'how could I?--how _could_ I?' There was silence again. He opened his lips to speak once or twice, but no words came. One expression succeeded another on his face; his eyes sparkled. At last he said--'How could you help it? You could not prevent my loving you.' 'Yes, I could--I ought----,' she said, vehemently. 'Only I was a fool--I never realised. That's so like me. I won't face things. And yet'--she looked at him miserably--'I did beg you to let me live my own life--didn't I?--not to spoil me--not--not to be so kind to me.' He smiled. 'Yes. But then you see--you were you!' She sprang up, looking down upon him, as he sat by the fire. 'That's just it. If I were another person! But no!--no! I can't be your friend. I'm not old enough--or clever enough. And I can't ever be anything else.' 'Why?' He asked it very quietly, his eyes raised to hers. He could see the quick beat of her breath under her black dress. 'Because I'm not my own. I'm not free--you know I'm not. I'm not free legally--and I'm not free in heart. Oh, if George were to come in at that door!'--she threw back her head with a passionate gesture--'there would be nobody else in the world for me--nobody--nobody!' He stooped over the fire, fidgeting with it, so that his face was hidden from her. 'You know, I think, that if I believed there was the faintest hope of that, I should never have said a word--of my own feelings. But as it is--why must you feel bound to break up this--this friendship, which means so much to us all? What harm is there in it? Time will clear up a great deal. I'll hold my tongue--I promise you. I won't bother you. I won't speak of it again--for a year--or more--if you wish. But--don't forsake us!' He looked up with that smile which in Cicely's unbiased opinion gave him such an unfair advantage over womankind. With a little sob, Nelly walked away towards the window, which was still uncurtained though the night had fallen. Outside there was a starry deep of sky, above Wetherlam and the northern fells. The great shapes held the valley in guard; the river windings far below seemed still to keep the sunset; while here and there shone scattered lights in farms and cottages, sheltering the old, old life of the dales. Insensibly Nelly's passionate agitation began to subside. Had she been filling her own path with imaginary perils and phantoms? Yet there echoed in her mind the low-spoken words--'I won't deceive you! I love you!' And the recollection both frightened and touched her.