The words, so unlike _her_ calm good sense; the tone so full of hopeless sorrow, told Oswald how full of grief must be the heart they came from. They had strolled, unconsciously perhaps, down the broad walk of the garden, and were now passing a bench. "Will you sit down for a minute," he asked, "while I say a few words to you?" "Yes: if I have time. My appointment is for two o'clock, and I wish to be there rather before than after it." He took out his watch and showed it to her. There was plenty of time to spare. "Have you to keep these appointments often?" "I never kept but the one you know of. I hope--I am not sure--but I hope that the one today will be all I shall have to keep. It is a singular chance--that you should meet me on both days!" "I don't think anything in the world happens by chance," gravely observed Oswald. "Do you recollect the interview I had with you at your house, just after your father's death?" he resumed, after a pause. Sara turned her face to him in her surprise. "O yes." "And do you remember," he continued, his voice assuming its sincerest and tenderest tone, "what I said at that interview?--That nothing would give me so much pleasure as to be your _friend_, should you require one. Sara--forgive me if I go back for a moment to our old familiar forms of speech--let me prove myself one now!" "In what manner?" she asked, after some moments of hesitation. "If I am able to understand anything of this business you need one. You seem to stand alone in it; no one to counsel you, no one to help." "It is true," she said, "I have to stand in it alone. I must stand in it alone." "Suffer _me_ to be, so far, your friend." She faintly shook her head. "You could not be." "It is true that--that--the period has not arrived, perhaps for either of us, when we had contemplated such a friendship might begin. But we must waive that: necessity alters cases. Sara, let me serve you! I ask it in the name of Dr. Davenal. Surely you can have no objection?" Her eyes were swimming in tears as she looked straight before her on the gravel path. "In anything but this I should only be too thankful. Sometimes I feel that I am left without a friend in the wide world." "Why not in this?" "Because it is a matter that I may not confide to any one. It is"--she lowered her voice--"a secret." "I will be true as steel. No matter what dishonour may be in it, it shall be held sacred within my breast; never betrayed, never spoken of. I judge that it is not a pleasant secret; therefore I use the word dishonour. It is more fitting that I should be engaged in this matter than you."