For an instant she looked at me without comprehension, her eyebrows drawn together, in evident question and surprise. Then the tension relaxed. Gently and sweetly she laughed. ‘Ah! yes,’ she said. ‘I know. He grew reckless--he did wrong. But--but, dear Mr. Brownlow--is it wicked of me?--I cannot condemn him for that--because it was his love for me which drove him to it. He tells you so himself. I suppose I ought to be shocked--I will try to be--presently--if you say I ought. But not just yet--please not just yet.’ ‘Neither now nor presently,’ I answered, conscience-stricken and ashamed. ‘You know far better than I what is right. Follow your own heart.’ I opened the gate, and stood back for her to pass. As she did so she paused. ‘You are displeased with me,’ she said. ‘Yet why? Why did you let me read his letter, except to comfort me and make me happy by showing me he was not to blame?’ Why indeed? She well might ask. And how was I to answer without still further betraying my trust--my trust to her, this time, since I had sworn to be to her as a brother and let no hint of my own feelings disturb the serenity of our intercourse? So I replied, I am afraid clumsily enough-- ‘You are mistaken. And to show you how little I am displeased I beg you to keep this letter, in exchange for the one you gave me to keep. You may like to read it through again, from time to time.’ I held it out. And for an instant she hesitated, her eyes fixed upon the writing, upon the paper, as though these actual and material things were precious in her sight. Then she put her hands behind her and shook her head. ‘No--better not. It is not necessary,’ she said with a childlike gravity. Her whole attitude just now was curiously simple and childlike. ‘I have every word of it by heart already, dear Mr. Brownlow. I shall remember every word--always.’ And for a while we walked on in silence, side by side, beneath the dying sunset. Upon the hump-backed bridge spanning the stream Nellie stopped. ‘One thing more, good physician,’ she said, very gently. ‘I am cut off from him for--for ever by his marriage. But you can watch over him and care for his welfare still. You will do so?’ ‘Before God--yes,’ I answered. ‘And, sometimes, you will let me hear, you will come and tell me about him?’ ‘Again--yes--before God.’ And I smiled to myself, bowing my head. Oh! the magnificent and relentless egoism of love!--But she should have this since she asked it; this and more than this. Plans began to form in my mind, a determination to make sure, whatever it might cost me, about this same marriage of Hartover’s. I would devote myself to an inquiry, pursue it carefully, prudently; but pursue it regardless of time, regardless of money--such money as, by economy and hard work, I could command. For was not such an inquiry part, and an integral one, of the pledge to watch over Hartover and care for his welfare which I had so recently and solemnly given her? Undoubtedly it was.