His hands trembled on the keys, and as he looked his heart beat high and higher, loud and louder, till it drowned the rhythm of the music. And as he looked her calm eyes met his. In another moment he was on his knees beside her, her hands caught in his trembling clasp, and his head pressed down upon them. "I know," he gasped, "it is no good. You have told me so once. You will tell me so again. I am not good enough. I am not worthy. But I love you; I love you!" In moments of real feeling the old words hold their own against all modern new-comers. Dare repeated them over and over again in a paroxysm of overwhelming emotion which shook him from head to foot. Something in his boyish attitude and in his entire loss of self-control touched Ruth strangely. She knew he was five or six years her senior, but at the moment she felt as if she were much older than he, and a sudden vague wish passed through her mind that he had been nearer her in age; not quite so young. "Well?" she said, gently; and he felt her cool, passive hands tremble a little in his. Something in the tone of her voice made him raise his head, and meet her eyes looking down at him, earnestly, and with a great kindness in them. A sudden eager light leaped into his face. "Will you?" he whispered, breathlessly, his hands tightening their hold of hers. "Will you?" There was a moment's pause, in which the whole world seemed to stand quite still and wait for her answer. "Yes," she said at last, "I will." "I am glad I did it," she said to herself, half an hour later, as she leaned her tired head against the carved oak chimney-piece in her bedroom, and absently traced with her finger the Latin inscription over the fireplace. "I like him very much. I am glad I did it." CHAPTER XVI. For many years nothing had given Mr. Alwynn such heart-felt pleasure as the news Ruth had to tell him, as he drove her back next morning to Slumberleigh, behind Mrs. Alwynn's long-tailed ponies. It was a still September morning, with a faint pearl sky and half-veiled silver sun. Pale gleams of sunshine wandered across the busy harvest fields, and burnished the steel of the river. Decisions of any kind rarely look their best after a sleepless night; but as Ruth saw the expression of happiness and relief that came into her uncle's face, when she told him what had happened, she felt again that she was glad--very glad.