“When you quit the Chase,” he went on, “I shall lose that which to me is the most precious object on earth, and who shall say whether I shall ever find it again? Ethel, on that April day which now seems so long ago that I could fancy it pertained to some prior state of existence, I told you that I loved you, and asked you to become my wife. Your answer was, that you had no love to give me, and that you could never marry me. I took my dismissal and went—indeed, there was nothing else left me to do—not knowing whether I should ever see you again. Then, when, one morning, months afterwards, I came suddenly upon you in one of the garden-paths at the Chase, it seemed as if the gates of Paradise must have opened, and that you had come down its golden stairs to meet me face to face. And the same instant my love for you, which I had locked up in the innermost chamber of my heart as a priceless treasure once more flooded all my being with a rapture of hope. Ethel, that hope has not yet deserted me. If I have not spoken before, it has been because I feared to startle you, because I trembled lest my audacity might be the cause of my losing what I possessed already—your friendship—and yet give me nothing in return. But now the day of timid counsels is over, and at the risk of losing everything I cast silence to the winds. You _must_ hear me, you _must_ know all, let your sentence be what it may.” He poured forth the words with a fervour with which few who knew him would have credited the ordinarily quiet, self-contained and somewhat self-repressed Everard Lisle. They were both still seated on the trunk of the fallen tree, and he now drew a little closer to Ethel, who, all this time, had been gazing straight before her with a strangely rapt expression on her face. “So now again to-day,” he went on, “I am going to ask you the self-same question that I asked you on your birthday——” “Stay! Do not speak another word till you have heard what I have to say.” She had turned and was facing him, the delicate roses of her cheeks somewhat blanched, but her eyes shining clear and full like twin stars of morning. There was that in the way she spoke which compelled attention. Everard was struck dumb. Man though he was, his heart fluttered like a frightened bird. What was he about to be told? That he was too late?—that some rival had been beforehand with him? Where was all his happy confidence now? It seemed to him as if his face had turned grey and old. A shiver went through him from head to foot. “Come,” said Ethel, “let us walk awhile. I have much to tell you.” She rose, and, like an automaton, he did the same. They turned and, side by side, began to pace the turfy margin of the pool. Ethel did not at once break the silence. Many emotions were at work within her, and she wanted to assure herself that she had them well under control before she spoke again.