"I am glad he has gone, because he would do us no good," said Rachel. "You were angry with me just now because I spoke of interference. I meant it. I will not admit of any interference from you." Then she sat with her two hands on her knees, looking him full in the face. "I love you with all my heart, and am ready to tell everyone that I am to become your wife. They have a joke about it in the theatre calling me Mrs. Jones; and because nobody believes what anybody says they think you're a myth. I suppose it is queer that a singing girl should marry Mr. Jones. I'm to go in the autumn to Covent Garden, and get ever so much more money, and I shall still talk about Mr. Jones,--unless you and I agree to break it off." "Certainly not that," said he. "But it is by no means certain. Will you go back to Ireland to-morrow morning, and undertake not to see me again, until you come prepared to marry me? If not we must break it off." "I can hardly do that" "Then," said she, rising from her chair, "it is broken off, and I will not call myself Mrs. Jones any more." He too rose from his chair, and frowned at her by way of an answer. "I have one other suggestion to make," she said. "I shall receive next October what will be quite sufficient for both of us, and for father too. Come and bear the rough and the smooth together with us." "And live upon you?" "I should live upon you without scruple if you had got it. And then I shall bear your interference without a word of complaint. Nay, I shall thank you for it. I shall come to you for advice in everything. What you say will be my law. You shall knock down all the Mosses for me;--or lock them up, which would be so much better. But you must be my husband." "Not yet. You should not ask me as yet. Think of my father's position. Let this one sad year pass by." "Two--three, if there are to be two or three sad years! I will wait for you till you are as grey as old Peter, and I have not a note left in my throat. I will stick to you like beeswax. But I will not have you here hanging about me. Do you think that it would not be pleasant for me to have a lover to congratulate me every day on my little triumphs? Do you think that I should not be proud to be seen leaning always on your arm, with the consciousness that Mr. Moss would be annihilated at his very first word? But when a year had passed by, where should I be? No, Frank, it will not do. If you were at Morony Castle things would go on very well. As you choose to assume to yourself the right of interference, we must part." "When you tell me of such a proposition as that made to you by the woman, am I to say nothing?" "Not a word;--unless it be by letter from Morony Castle, and then only to me. I will not have you here meddling with my affairs. I told you, though I didn't tell my father, because I would tell you everything." "And I am to leave you,--without another word?"