From that day we were sweethearts as openly as any rustic pair. To her it was all as natural as the romances she had read, and she can never have had the least suspicion of the misgivings that had vexed my soul. She seemed surprised even when I touched on the social gulf that separated us. She owned sorrowfully that her father would never hear of such a match, but she evidently took it for granted that I should not heed his opposition. I was her knight, and it was for me to overcome every obstacle in the way. Her faith in me was perfect. All affection for her father had been crushed out of her in childhood. She had loved me more easily, and she loved me more passionately, because she had no one else to love. And what were we to do? I was barely of age. I was not qualified; I had no means of support except a dwindling legacy that would be exhausted by the time I was able to earn my first fee. The knights of old seem never to have been troubled by such hindrances as these; the dragons they vanquished were creatures who could be subdued by strength of arm; they never had to ride into anything worse than an ogre’s castle or a wizard’s cave. The terrors of the bank parlour and the house-agent’s office were unknown to them; and they never had to face a baker or a butcher armed with his weekly bill. I put off as long as I could the pain of confessing to Violet that these dragons in the way must take years to vanquish. And at first she hardly grasped what it would mean to her. The mere waiting, I could see, would cost her less than me. After all, courtship is the supreme time of womanhood. Then she is queen indeed, and marriage is for her dethronement. Her bridal is like the glorious pyre on which the Hindu widow once expired in religious ecstasy. It was not until she realized that I was going that Violet broke down. There the burden was shifted to the other side. Delay is the suffering of man, separation the suffering of woman. I had my work to go back to; I had my friends and all the distractions of life in London. She had nothing before her but her remote and solitary prison. We had fallen into the way of meeting most often in the deserted barn. Its situation assured us of a privacy more secure than that of the lanes and woods. No one could approach us without being seen, and no one ever did approach. No one could see through the openings--a bare two inches wide in the thick wall; and no one could overhear. A pile of bracken made our seat, and there we rested many a long summer afternoon, the battered door thrown wide to let us count the windings of the river far below, while we talked of all the coming years might bring.