"You won't?" cries St. John, mistaking the cause of her silence, in a voice in which extreme surprise and profound alarm and pain are mixed in equal quantities. Still no answer. "If you have been making a fool of me all this time, you might, at least, have the civility to tell me so," he says, in a voice so sternly cold that remorse, coyness, and all other feelings merge into womanish fear. "Don't blame me before I deserve it," she says, with a faint smile. "I will mar----" She finishes her sentence on his breast. Perfect happiness never lasts more than two seconds in this world; at the end of that time St. John's doubts return. He puts her a little way from him, that she may be a freer agent. "Esther," he says, "I half believe that you said 'yes' out of sheer fright; you thought I was going to upbraid you; and I am aware" (with a half smile) "that there are few things you would not do or leave undone to avoid a scolding; you did not say it readily, as if you were glad of it. I know that you have only known me three weeks, that I am not particularly likeable, especially by women, and that I always show to the worst possible advantage at home. All I beg of you is, tell me the truth: Do you like me, or do you not?" "I do like you." "Like is such a comprehensive word," he says, with a slight, impatient contracting of his straight brows. "You _like_ Mrs. Brown, I suppose, for washing your clothes?" "I like you better than Mrs. Brown." "I did not doubt that," he answers, laughing; "probably you like me better than Sir Thomas, than my mother, than Constance, perhaps; but such liking as that I would not stoop to pick off the ground. I must be first or nowhere. Am I first?" "No, you are not," she answers firmly. His countenance falls, as Cain's did. "I am not!" he repeats, in a constrained voice. "Who is then, may I ask?" "Jack, my brother--he is, and always will be!" "Bah!" cries Gerard, laughing, and looking immensely relieved. "How you frightened me! I believe you did it on purpose, as you said to me about the brook this afternoon. After him, am I first?" "Yes." "Before----what's his name?--the fellow that writes such a remarkably good hand--before Brandon?" "Why do you always worry me about him?" she exclaims, angrily, turning away. "Why do you so strongly resent being worried about him?" retorts St. John suspiciously. "It is wearisome to hear a person always harping on one string," she answers coldly. "Believe me or not, as you choose; but please spare me the trouble of these repeated and useless asseverations."