"Then suddenly he said something. That's his way--when you're not expecting it. He said perhaps he'd made a mistake about me yesterday, but he didn't think he'd been altogether mistaken. If I didn't love him very much now, he wanted me all the same, and he was sure he could make me happy. Would I marry him and let him try? "It was the last thing I expected. I didn't know what to say or what to think. Then he said that he shouldn't worry me with love-making until I was ready for it. He said in his quiet deep sort of way, 'When you are, my dear, you'll have all you can want,' and he made me feel, somehow, that perhaps I should come to want it--from him, I mean." She stopped for a moment as if she were examining herself. "I can't think now what made me say, yes," she said. "I didn't feel in the least like I did when I--when I said yes, before. I think if he had--had kissed me, or treated me as if I had already given him everything, I should have drawn back, perhaps run away from him. But he just took both my hands, and looked me straight in the face and said: 'Thank you; I promise you that you shall never be sorry for it.' Oh, he is good--and strong. I think I do love him. If you'd seen the look in his eyes! It touched me, and made me want to cry. I think if he had kissed me then, I shouldn't have minded." "Hasn't he kissed you at all?" Caroline asked. The heaviness of heart which the beginning of the story had brought her had lightened. It would not have been told her in just that way if Beatrix had come to her to ask her help in extricating herself from an impossible position. And yet she had been inclined to think that it had been all a mistake, and had better be ended, for the sake of Beatrix's happiness. "I'm coming to that, darling. You must let me tell it to you all as it happened." Caroline kissed her again. As her heart grew lighter, the channels of her love were clearing. "We went and walked in the garden," Beatrix went on. "We talked about what we would do when we were married--where we should live, and all that. I felt quite pleased and excited. It was something going to happen. I think only one part of me was working. And I felt as if I'd come to anchor. You know, darling, I _haven't_ enjoyed myself this year, as I did last. _That_ had spoilt everything for me. I think if I had lived quietly at home, as you have, it might have been different. But I'm rather tired of going about, and remembering _that_ all the time. I don't want _him_ any longer--of course. I hate him. But what I thought he was--having somebody all my own who would love me, and I would do all I could to make him happy--I suppose if you've once wanted that you always want it; and a home of your own, and children of your own to love."