‘It is to ask a question,’ he went on, ‘and there must be confidence between us. You have saved me from an act of madness! What can I do for you?’ ‘Nothing, sir.’ ‘Nothing?’ ‘Father is very well off, and we don’t want anything.’ ‘But there must be some service I can render, some kindness, some votive offering which I could make, and so imprint on your memory as long as you live that I am not an ungrateful man?’ ‘Why should you be grateful to me, sir?’ He shook his head. ‘Some things are best left unspoken. Now think. What would you like to have best in the world?’ Margery made a pretence of reflecting—then fell to reflecting seriously; but the negative was ultimately as undisturbed as ever: she could not decide on anything she would like best in the world; it was too difficult, too sudden. ‘Very well—don’t hurry yourself. Think it over all day. I ride this afternoon. You live—where?’ ‘Silverthorn Dairy-house.’ ‘I will ride that way homeward this evening. Do you consider by eight o’clock what little article, what little treat, you would most like of any.’ ‘I will, sir,’ said Margery, now warming up to the idea. ‘Where shall I meet you? Or will you call at the house, sir?’ ‘Ah—no. I should not wish the circumstances known out of which our acquaintance rose. It would be more proper—but no.’ Margery, too, seemed rather anxious that he should not call. ‘I could come out, sir,’ she said. ‘My father is odd-tempered, and perhaps—’ It was agreed that she should look over a stile at the top of her father’s garden, and that he should ride along a bridle-path outside, to receive her answer. ‘Margery,’ said the gentleman in conclusion, ‘now that you have discovered me under ghastly conditions, are you going to reveal them, and make me an object for the gossip of the curious?’ ‘No, no, sir!’ she replied earnestly. ‘Why should I do that?’ ‘You will never tell?’ ‘Never, never will I tell what has happened here this morning.’ ‘Neither to your father, nor to your friends, nor to any one?’ ‘To no one at all,’ she said. ‘It is sufficient,’ he answered. ‘You mean what you say, my dear maiden. Now you want to leave me. Good-bye!’ She descended the hill, walking with some awkwardness; for she felt the stranger’s eyes were upon her till the fog had enveloped her from his gaze. She took no notice now of the dripping from the trees; she was lost in thought on other things. Had she saved this handsome, melancholy, sleepless, foreign gentleman who had had a trouble on his mind till the letter came? What had he been going to do? Margery could guess that he had meditated death at his own hand. Strange as the incident had been in itself; to her it had seemed stranger even than it was. Contrasting colours heighten each other by being juxtaposed; it is the same with contrasting lives.