There was a pause--neither of them could speak at that moment. Nettie, who felt her resolution going, her heart melting, yet knew she dared not give way, clasped her hands tight in each other and stood trembling, yet refusing to tremble; collecting her voice and thoughts. The doctor occupied that moment of suspense in a way which might have looked ludicrous in other circumstances, but was a relief to the passion that possessed him. He dragged the other vast Australian box to the same corner where he had set the first, and piled them one above the other. Then he collected with awkward care all the heaps of garments which lay about, and carried them off in the other direction to the stairs, where he laid them carefully with a clumsy tenderness. When he had swept away all these encumbrances, as by a sudden gust of wind, he came back to Nettie, and once more clasped the firm hands which held each other fast. She broke away from him with a sudden cry-- "You acknowledged it was impossible!" cried Nettie. "It is not my doing, or anybody's; no one shall take the world on his shoulders for my sake--I ask nobody to bear my burdens. Thank you for not believing it--that is a comfort at least. Never, surely, any one else--and not you, not you! Dr Edward, let us make an end of it. I will never consent to put my yoke upon your shoulders, but I--I will never forget you or blame you--any more. It is all hard, but we cannot help it. Good-bye--don't make it harder, you, who are the only one that----; good-bye,--no more--don't say any more." At this moment the parlour door opened suddenly; Nettie's trembling mouth and frame, and the wild protest and contradiction which were bursting from the lips of the doctor, were lost upon the spectator absorbed in her own affairs, and full of excitement on her own account, who looked out. "Perhaps Mr Edward will walk in," said Mrs Fred. "Now he is here to witness what I mean, I should like to speak to you, please, Nettie. I did not think I should ever appeal to you, Mr Edward, against Nettie's wilfulness--but, really now, we, none of us, can put up with it any longer. Please to walk in and hear what I've got to say."