‘I have been far from well. I have been working rather harder than usual. I have to earn my bread, you know, Laura.’ ‘Have you any profession now that you have left the army?’ asked Laura. ‘I left the army six years ago. I have managed to live by my own labour since that time. My career has been a chequered one. I have lived partly by art, partly by literature, and have not succeeded in winning a name in either profession. That does not sound a brilliant account, does it? Its only merit is truth. I am nobody. Your generosity and my cousin Jasper’s will may make me somebody. My fate depends on you.’ This was hardly the tone of a lover. It was a tone that Laura’s pride would have resented had she not inwardly believed that John Treverton loved her. There is a subtle power in the love which keeps silence mightier than all love’s eloquence. A hand that trembles when it touches another, one swift look from loving eyes, a sigh, a tone, will tell more than an oration. John Treverton was the most reticent of lovers, yet his reserve did not offend Laura. They went into the grave old house together, and sat down to luncheon, _tête-à-tête_, waited upon by Trimmer, the old butler, who had lived more than thirty years with Jasper Treverton, and had lifted Laura out of the carriage when his master brought her to the manor a delicate child, looking wistfully round at strange objects with wide-opened eyes. ‘They looked just for all the world like man and wife,’ said Trimmer, when he went back to his pantry, ‘and I hope before long it’ll be that. They’ll make a fine couple, and I’m sure they’re fond o’ one another already.’ ‘It isn’t in Miss Laura to marry a man she wasn’t fond of, not for all the fortunes in Christendom,’ retorted Mrs. Trimmer, who had been cook and housekeeper nearly as long as her husband had been butler. ‘Well, if I was a young woman I’d marry a’most anybody rather than I’d lose such a ’ome as Hazlehurst Manor,’ answered Trimmer. ‘I ain’t a money-grubber, but a good ’ome ain’t to be trifled with. And if they don’t marry, and the estate goes to build a norsepital, what’s to become of you and me? Some folks in our position would be all agog for setting up in the public line and making our fortunes, but I’ve seen more fortunes lost than won that way, and I know when I’m well off. Good wages paid reg’lar, and everything found for me, is all I ask.’