Hewson reflected. “I don’t see how it can. I was trying to come to you, when I got your note, to say that St. John had been to see me, and offered to release me from my offer, because, as I thought, you had made him a better one. He’s amusingly rapacious, St. John is.” “And what did you--I beg your pardon!” “Oh, not at all. I said I would stand to my offer.” She repressed, apparently, some form of protest, and presently asked, “And what shall I say?” “Oh, if you like, that you have learned who the purchaser of St. Johnswort is, and that you know he will not give way.” “Well!” she said, with a quick sigh, as of disappointment. After an indefinite pause, she asked, “Shall you be going to St. Johnswort?” “Why, I don’t know,” Hewson answered. “I had thought of going to Europe. But, yes, I think I shall go to St. Johnswort, first, at any rate. One can’t simply turn one’s back on a piece of real estate in that way,” he said, recognizing a fact that would doubtless have presented itself in due order for his consideration. “My one notion was to forget it as quickly as possible.” “I should not think you would want to do that,” said the girl, seriously. “No, one oughtn’t to neglect an investment.” “I don’t mean that. But if such a thing had happened to me, there, I should want to go again and again.” “You mean the apparition? Did I tell you how I had always had the expectation that I should see it again, and perhaps understand it? But when I had behaved so shabbily about it, I began to feel that it would not come again.” “If I were in your place,” said the girl, “I should never give up; I should spend my whole life trying to find out what it meant.” “Ah!” he sighed. “I wish you could put yourself in my place.” “I wish I could,” she returned, intensely. They looked into each other’s faces. “Miss Hernshaw,” he demanded, solemnly, “do you really like people to say what they think?” “Of course I do!” “Then I wish you would come to St. Johnswort with me!” “Would that do?” she asked. “If Mrs. Rock--” He saw how far she was from taking his meaning, but he pushed on. “I don’t want Mrs. Rock. I want you--you alone. Don’t you understand me? I love you. I--of course it’s ridiculous! We’ve only met three or four times in our lives, but I knew this as well the first moment as I do now. I knew it when you came walking across the garden that morning, and I haven’t known it any better since, and I couldn’t in a thousand years. But of course--” “Sit down,” she said, wafting herself into a chair, and he obeyed her. “I should have to tell my father,” she began. “Why, certainly,” and he sprang to his feet again. She commanded him to his chair with an imperative gesture. “I have got to find out what I think, first, myself. If I were sure that I loved you--but I don’t know. I believe you are good. I believed that when they were all joking you there at breakfast, and you took it so nicely; I have _always_ believed that you were good.”