"Our positions are very different, darling. I hope I have not done wrong to tell you how dear you are to me?" "I think it would have been unkind and cruel to go away without telling me," she answered bravely, though the sound of the words as she said them brought the hot colour into her cheeks. "Thank you, dearest; that is the best comfort I could have, if I may dare to believe it. But it does seem so wonderful that you should care for me!" The contemplation of this wonder might have occupied them both for an indefinite time but that they saw a light begin to shine through the fanlight of the little entrance-hall of Jessamine Cottage. In the stillness of the night the sound of their voices, subdued though they were, had reached the ears of Mrs. Dobbs. She presently opened the door, and stood looking at them as they hurried up the garden path. "Oh, granny dear, I'm afraid I'm late!" said May. "I did not guess that you were sitting up for me." "Martha had a touch of her rheumatism, so I sent her to bed. I did not mind waiting. I suppose Miss Piper's maid couldn't come with you? Was that it?" asked Mrs. Dobbs. She lingered at the open door, expecting Owen to say "Good-night." But May took her grandmother's hand and pulled her into the house, while he followed them. When they reached the lamp-lighted parlour, May, still holding her grandmother's hand with her left hand, stretched out her right to Owen, and gently drew him forward. Then she flung her left arm round the old woman's neck, and kissed her. There was no need for words. Mrs. Dobbs sank down, white and tremulous, in her great chair, while May nestled beside her on her knees, and tried to place Owen's hand, which she still clasped, in that of her grandmother. But the old woman brusquely drew her hand away. "You have done wrong," she said, turning to Owen, and scarcely able to control the trembling of her lips. "I didn't think it of you. But men are all alike; selfish, selfish, selfish!" "Why, granny!" exclaimed the girl, breathless with dismay. Then she started up with a flash of impetuous indignation, and stood beside her lover. "He is _not_ selfish!" she said vehemently. "Hush, May! Granny is right," said Owen in a low voice. "I told you that I feared I had done wrong." Mrs. Dobbs still trembled, but she was struggling to regain her self-command. "You might have waited yet awhile," she said brokenly. "The child is young! You ought not to have bound her until you see your way more clear." "Oh, believe me, I will not hold her bound," answered Owen. "I never meant that. I ought not to have spoken yet. I feared so before, and now that you say so, I know it. But I am not wholly selfish." May had stood listening silently, looking, with wide eyes and parted lips, from one to the other. She now fell on her knees again beside her grandmother, and, clasping the old woman's hands in both her own, cried eagerly--