"There is no one else, Sylvia?" "There is no one else." "Ah! you are so hard-hearted, child. Or is it that you will stay with your father?" "Not altogether that. I've seen no one here I would marry." "Yet you have met all sorts and conditions of men." "All sorts and conditions, but not the right one." "The right one will come." "He might come--he may have come, and not have found me the right woman." She looked at him an instant; then she suddenly blushed hotly, and her eyes fell and rested on the jewelled fingers in her lap. So full was her attitude of yielding and submission that it might well make the heart of a lover leap. A sudden, bewildering idea came to the man before her. For an instant he was dazed with the shock of it. Then he stood up and paced the room in great agitation. "Sylvia," he said at last, pausing before her where she still sat, a lovely image of submission, "Pamela was right when she did not marry me." "She was right because she did not love you." "How could she love me? I might have been her father." "That is no reason. Love does not take count of such things." "Ah, Sylvia! What has love to do with grey hairs?" "If there is love, they are better than gold." "Sylvia, do you know what madness you are putting into my head?" "I cannot know unless you tell me." Sylvia's eyes were raised to his with a flash of the old audacity. "Perhaps I dare not tell you." "Ah, do!" "If I were a young man and you would do it, you might turn this work-a-day earth to Paradise for me." "And why not now?" [Illustration: He made a step towards her.--_p. 552._] "Ah! child, you do not know what you are saying. What could you, a beauty and an heiress, see in me?" "I am glad I am beautiful to you. But why should that and the other things stand between me and my happiness?" "Your happiness, Sylvia?" "Ah, yes! You wouldn't see it, but I always thought there was no one in the world like you. You chose Pam before me, and even then I accepted your will, but I loved you still." "I chose Pam because she was unhappy, because there seemed no other way. It did not break my heart to give her up, though it was a blow. It does not hurt me now to hear of her as Lady Trevithick. But I dare not risk the same thing with you." "Why?" "Because it would be so easy to forget my years, and love you with a young man's ardour, and more than a young man's faith." "Then why not love me?" "Ah! Sylvia, it is your kindness, your compassion. I could not endure to be thrown over now, even though I am well on in my forties." "I shall not throw you over. Look at me, and you will see." He looked at her, and made a step towards her. "Then you will make the world over again for me?" "And you for me?" "Ah, Sylvia!" "Yes. How hard it was to persuade you. There will be lots of people who will want to marry you once it is known you have come back. You might have liked someone better than me. And I have waited for three years."