"I am here to dare; remember, I've never grown up; daring is natural enough to me. _I_ don't ask for security. Do you love any one now?" I said nothing. "You love Naomi," he said. I said nothing. "You love her," he repeated, "and--God knows why--she loves you." "Say that again!" I said. "She loves you." "How do you know?" "I know." I felt horribly giddy again. "Now listen," he said, and his voice had become kinder. "This is your last chance. Be a man; give up this amiable idling and do something decisive. Marry her; she's the best woman you'll ever meet, and she'll make you work. Marry her, old chap; ask her to-morrow, and begin to live again. You've been dead too long." "Does she really love me?" I asked him; but he had disappeared. When I woke up I found I was still in my clothes on the sitting-room floor. I crept to bed in a daze. CHAPTER XXVII MISS GOLD SHOWS ME THE WAY I need hardly say that I did not sleep more that night. I had two matters of the gravest importance to ponder upon: the shock to my complacency, and the state of my heart. As to the charges of wasted time, I was bound to admit their general truth; and I did so not only by temperament, for it is my natural tendency to believe in the soundness of an adversary's case, being usually more ready to admit the error than to repulse the accusation,--a poor retrograde frame of mind enough, you will say, but my own,--but also after thought on the subject. I had, there was no doubt, vegetated rather than lived. But it was not too late to begin; and with that brave piece of optimism for a halter, I gently led the first part of the indictment into the background and left it there. But then? Look where I would I saw nothing but the sweet face of Naomi. That I was never happy away from her, I had proved; that I thought of her continually, I knew; that if she were to go away, or, worse, marry another, I should live in a world of darkness, I knew. But did this give me the right to ask her to marry me, and would she say yes? How did that young devil know that she loved me? The whole thing was an absurd dream, realistic enough, but as ridiculous as other dreams. Having reached this point I began all over again. At six I got up and walked to Covent Garden and drifted about among the flowers and vegetables. Then I had a Turkish bath, and after breakfast I took a train to Esher. The only person in the world to comfort my wounded spirit and perplexed brain was Miss Gold. I began with the young man's ultimatum upon myself. I told her everything that had been said on both sides; and I had no difficulty in doing so, for the memory was burnt into my brain. Can it have been a dream? It seemed too real.