"Thank you," he said; "it was decent of you to say that. Now, where I made my error was in this. I didn't think it mattered much whether I got you willing or unwilling, so long as I _got_ you. It was _you_ I wanted, you--Elsie--alive or dead, so to speak,--nothing else mattered. And then suddenly I saw what a fool I had been. I had forgotten that there were two sides to the question. When a man wins a race or a competition of any kind, he sticks the prize up on his mantelpiece and takes no further notice of it beyond looking at it occasionally and feeling glad he's got it. Once there, it ceases to have such an interest for him: he hasn't got to live with it or cart it about with him. I am afraid I was looking at you rather in that light. I was so taken up with the idea of winning you that I forgot about--about--" "About having to 'cart me about with you'?" said Elsie. "Yes, that's it. I forgot I couldn't put you on the mantelpiece and leave you there: I had to consider your point of view as well as my own. It was then I realised, all in a moment, that unless you came to me absolutely of your own free will, without terms or conditions, you couldn't come at all,--and what's more, I wouldn't want you to; and that's saying a good deal, as you know." He paused suddenly, and darted a rather ashamed look at Elsie. "I suppose all this seems fearfully obvious to you," he said. "Most men would have found it out for themselves from the beginning." "Some men never find it out at all, Pip." "Well, that's comforting. Anyhow, having reasoned it all out up there, I put my pipe in my pocket and came along here to tell you." "To tell me what?" "How sorry I was." "What for?" "For having behaved like a--" "You don't look very sorry." Pip's eyes gleamed. "No, and I'm not either," he shouted. "I'm not, I'm not! I have seen something since then that has driven all my sorriness out of my head. I came along here, fearfully glum, just to say I was sorry to have forced such a caddish scheme on you, and to ask if I might carry your clubs back to the house, and suddenly I came round the corner, and there I saw you--crying." "And that's made you glad?" said Elsie coldly. "Glad? I should think it did!" He stood up, and continued, "Don't you see, dear, it showed me that you _cared_? A girl doesn't lie sobbing on the sand if she's absolutely indifferent. Oh, I know now, right enough: half an hour ago I didn't. I came upon you then hunting for your ball and dabbing your eyes with your handkerchief; but that of course was different; I knew it wasn't the real thing. You were just tired then, and sick at losing the game; but this time"--his face glowed--"this time I knew it was the real thing, and that you cared, you really cared. Yes, you cared; you had cared all the time, and I had never known it!" He stood over her, absolutely radiant: no one had ever seen Pip like this before. Then he dropped down on to the grass beside the girl, and put his arm inside hers.