"I'll leave you here," he said, "because I don't want to make Fenwick come out again to-night. You won't mind going up through the garden alone?" "Oh dear, no." "And, Miss Lowther,--pray, pray take care of yourself. I hardly think you ought to have been out again to-night." "It was nothing, Mr. Gilmore. You make infinitely too much of it." "How can I make too much of anything that regards you? You will be at home to-morrow?" "Yes, I fancy so." "Do remain at home. I intend to come down after lunch. Do remain at home." He held her by the hand as he spoke to her, and she promised him that she would obey him. He clearly was entitled to her obedience on such a point. Then she slowly made her way round the garden, and entered the house at the front door, some quarter of an hour after the others. Why should she refuse him? What was it that she wanted in the world? She liked him, his manners, his character, his ways, his mode of life, and after a fashion she liked his person. If there was more of love in the world than this, she did not think that it would ever come in her way. Up to this time of her life she had never felt any such feeling. If not for her own sake, why should she not do it for him? Why should he not be made happy? She had risked a plunge in the water to get Flo her ball, and she liked him better than she liked Flo. It seemed that her mind had been altogether changed by that stroll through the dark alleys. "Well," said Janet, "how is it to be?" "He is to come to-morrow, and I do not know how it will be," she said, turning away to her own room. CHAPTER III. SAM BRATTLE.