"I'm going to ask you to give up a great deal for the sake of religion, and for my sake, Miss Warrender. I'm going to ask you to give up the world, its frivolous enjoyments and its pleasures, and to tread with me a thorny and toilsome path which leads to higher things. I know my presumption, Miss Warrender. I know that in trying to do good according to my lights I often merely succeed in making myself ridiculous. If I am ridiculous in your eyes, Miss Warrender, you can have but one answer to give me. But my proposition to you is at least disinterested. I know you will believe that. I don't ask you for an answer now, Miss Warrender. I should scorn to snatch a favourable answer from an inexperienced girl." Lucy gave another little smile. "Think over what I have said, dear Miss Warrender; if you feel equal to making the sacrifice, so do I. Take time to think it over." "No, Mr. Puffin. I have been foolish and wicked, perhaps, if I have unknowingly encouraged you; but you have spoken honestly enough to me, and the least you deserve is an honest answer. I am not fit, Mr. Puffin, to be any man's wife--any honest man's wife--least of all a clergyman's." Lucy felt that she had said a little too much, so she hastened to qualify it. "I am but a worldly girl. I love pleasure and dissipation; it is my nature--a nature I can never change. Look on me, Mr. Puffin, as wholly unworthy of you. Were you to marry me, Mr. Puffin, you would commit an act that we should both repent. You would degrade yourself to my level; and, God knows, mine is a very low level. Take my answer as it is meant Mr. Puffin, in seriousness, and as irrevocable. Forgive me, Mr. Puffin, and do me one favour. I am utterly bad, Mr. Puffin, but try not to think unkindly of me, for I have no friends; and, as you told me just now, I am my own worst enemy." Tears were standing in the pretty eyes. Lucy Warrender was not acting now. The Reverend Barnes Puffin did not press his suit further. "Good-bye, Miss Warrender," he said, in a choking voice. "But never say you have no friends. We may never meet again. I have merited my rebuff, but I thank you for your forbearance. And if you ever need a friend, you have a faithful one in me." He pressed her hand and took his leave. As he walked out of the rose garden with a dejected air, it was very evident that his wooing had not prospered. But Lucy Warrender never asked Haggard to pay his lost wager.