Mrs. Stanhope uttered a cry, and rising up hastily, caught Evelyn in her arms. “Oh,” she said, “I shall lose you, Eve!” The words and the embrace were full of compunction, of kindness, and remorse; but Evelyn felt the relief, the thankfulness, that suddenly flooded her friend’s breast, and her decision was no longer in any doubt. CHAPTER II. “Mr. Rowland,” said Evelyn with a little tremor, “the first thing I would like to say to you is that we are neither of us very young.” “Miss Ferrars,” said the engineer, “you are just as young as it is best and most beautiful to be.” There came a light like the reflection of a sudden flame over a face which she at least thought to be a faded face. She had never at her youngest and fairest received such a compliment, and how it could have come from a plain man who had so little appearance of any poetry about him was bewildering. It was indeed difficult to resume the middle-aged matter-of-fact tone after such an unexpected break. “I am forty-two,” she said, “and I have not been without experiences in my life. I want you to know what my past has been, before--” “Whatever you please to tell me,” he said with an air of deep respect--“but I must say it is not necessary. I am quite satisfied; your experiences may have been painful--the world isn’t over good to people like you. If you will give me your companionship for the rest of our lives, that is enough for me, and far more than I can ever deserve. I have had my experiences too--” “I must tell you, however, my story,” she said. Women, especially those who have lived in the virginal age for so long, are very conscientious in these matters. They have a much greater respect for love than ordinary people, and think it dishonourable to keep back the knowledge from a future husband of how they have been affected in this way during their past. The love that may have touched them years before they had even heard his name, seems to their over delicacy as if it must be a drawback to them in his eyes--a really guilty secret of which a clean breast must be made before the new and real history is allowed to begin. “I was,” she said with a little hesitation, “engaged to be married at the usual age. It is a long time ago. My father had not met with any misfortunes then. We were living at home. That makes so great a difference in every way. We were of course well known people, friendly with everybody; everything about us was well known. You know in a county people are acquainted with everything about each other--you can’t conceal it when anything happens to you, even if you wished to conceal it.” “I never had anything to do with a county,” he said, with a sort of respectful acquiescence, interested but not curious--“but I can understand what you mean.”