Once convinced he was a lover he became the man with a mission; his heart swelled with mysterious promptings, and felt the spur of duty. No longer was delay admissible. A day, an hour might involve the loss of all. Should he go round to the Manor House and tell Maggie of the message he had received to love her and save her? She would now be watering her flowers in the green-houses. But that other fellow might be there--he had heard something about an appointment. No, he had better write. If he wrote at once, absolutely at once, he would be in time for the six o'clock delivery. Snatching a sheet of paper he wrote:-- “DEAREST MAGGIE,--I have loved you a long while, I remember many things that make me think that I have always loved you; but to-day I have learnt that you are the one great and absorbing influence--that without you my life would be stupid and meaningless, whereas with you it shall be a joy, an achievement. “I have frittered away much time; my efforts in painting and poetry have been lacking in strength and persistency. I have vacillated and wandered, and I did not know why; but now I know why--because you were not by me to encourage me, to help me by your presence and beauty. I will not speak of the position I offer you--I know it is unworthy of you. I would like to give you a throne; but, alas, I can but promise you a coronet.” His hand stopped and he raised his eyes from the paper. He recollected the day he saw her a child, the day they went blackberrying over the hills. He saw her again, she was older and prettier, and she wore a tailor-cut cloth dress. How pretty she looked that day, and also when she wore that summer dress, those blue ribbons. All the colour, innocence, and mirth of his childhood came upon him sweetly, like an odour that passes and recalls. He sighed, and he murmured, “She is mine by right, all this could not have been if she were not for me.” Ah! how he longed to sit with her, even at her feet, and tell her how his life would be but worship of her. He regretted that he was not poor, for to unite himself more closely to her he would have liked to win her clothes and food by his labour; and hearing himself speaking of love and seeing her as a maiden with the May time about her, his dreams drifted until the ticking of the clock forced him to remember that he could tell her nothing now of all his romance, so with pain and despair at heart he wrote, “Never before did I so ardently feel the necessity of seeing you, of sharing my soul with you, and yet now is the moment when I say, I must end. But let this end be the beginning of our life of love, devotion, and trust. I will come to-night to see you; I will not go into the billiard-room, but will walk straight to the drawing-room. Do be there. Dearest Maggie, I am yours and yours only.”