Under the rays of the moon, the midsummer green of the Copley Grange trees had grown dusky. They were massed together and cast deep shadows over the turf, while the waters of the Brook flashed here and there like silver by contrast. In the sky overhead the Pleiades were asking who should bind their sweet influence? Orion the mighty hunter was abroad. The Pole-star was glittering with his special effulgence. ‘How small those lamps up yonder, whose oil has never failed since the creation, make a poor beggar and skirmisher of a day feel!’ said Oliver, suddenly. ‘One would not say, either, that they disdain the humanity they have given light to throughout the centuries. I am not sure whether Friarton Mill is not jollier by moonlight than by daylight. If all you said were true, Fan, what a compensation the beauty of this place might still prove! I defy you to say that in one respect, and that of all save the first importance, the lines have not fallen to us in pleasant places.’ But she would not be appeased. Nature was not to her at any time what it was to him; at this moment the perfection of the scene before her, hurt her afresh, like a taunt added to a blow. ‘You will make me hate this place,’ she cried reproachfully; ‘you will make me wish I had never seen this house which was father’s house, where I have lived the most of my life.’ He was sorry for her pain, but he was also disappointed and wounded at her utter want of sympathy with him. ‘You have one resource left you,’ he said, with some hardness, which had not been there before, stealing into his tone. ‘You can go away and leave me and the mill. My father made sufficient provision for you, to enable you to act as you like, and I will do all in my power——’ She interrupted him, turning upon him with a passionate protest. ‘Do you think I could do it? Do you think I would leave you alone to bear the penalty, though it may be of your own incurring? What do you take me for? You do not know me, Oliver.’ ‘That may very well be, since I do not believe your know yourself,’ said Oliver, with a shrug. ‘But I am obliged to you, all the same, for your magnanimity.’ He was really touched by her womanly love and constancy, though he had been too much provoked to show it. ‘There is one question I am entitled to ask you,’ said Fan, more calmly. ‘You admit you did not always mean to sink into a tradesman. I know you had very different ideas when you went first to Oxford. What changed you?’