“And now I intend to be quite as useful, and just as much your friend, I hope, as before. Let us make a bargain. You may feel quite safe. I won’t attempt to approach the unpleasant subject without your leave.” Mabel looked at him in astonishment. “But I should never give you leave, you know,” she said. “As you please. Then the subject will never be renewed. I am content to wait.” “But what is the good of waiting when I have told you----” “Come, I don’t think you can deny me that consolation, can you, when you have the whole thing in your own hands? Is it a bargain?” “It doesn’t seem fair to let you go on hoping----” “That’s my own lookout,” he said again. “If your friend is always at hand when you want him, surely he may be allowed to nurse his foolish hopes in private--provided that he never exhibits them?” “Very well, then,” said Mabel reluctantly. “But I don’t feel----” “If I am satisfied, surely you may be?” The entrance of a servant to unbar the shutters dispensed with the need of an answer. Preoccupied as they had been during the last half-hour, neither Fitz nor Mabel had noticed that the dust had ceased to patter and the wind to howl. The storm was over, and once again there was daylight, although rain was descending in torrents. “Mab, the Commissioner was asking for you,” said Georgia, pausing as she passed the door. “He has finished his morning’s work, and wanted to know if you were ready for some Browning.” “Oh yes, I’ll go at once,” said Mabel, anxious only to escape from Fitz and the memory of their agitating conversation. It had shaken her a good deal, she felt, and this made her angry with him. What right had he to disturb her so rudely, and make her feel guilty, when she had done nothing? It was with distinct relief that she met Mr Burgrave’s benignant smile, and returned his morning greeting. He did not appear to notice any perturbation in her manner, and she took up the book, and turned hastily to the page where they had left off, while Mr Burgrave, pencil in hand, settled himself comfortably among his cushions, ready to call attention to any beauties she might miss in reading the lines. If he was like Fitz, in that his eyes were fixed on the fair head bent over the pages of “Pippa Passes,” he was unlike Fitz in that their gaze escaped unnoticed. “‘You’ll love me yet!--and I can marry--’” read Mabel, totally unconscious of the havoc she was making of the poet’s words, but her auditor almost sprang from his couch. “No, no!” he cried. “I beg your pardon, Miss North, but the storm has shaken your nerves a little, hasn’t it? Allow me,” and he took the book from her hands, and read the poem aloud in a voice so full of feeling that it went to Mabel’s heart. “‘You’ll love me yet!--and I can tarry Your love’s protracted growing; June reared that bunch of flowers you carry From seeds of April’s sowing. ‘I plant a heartful now; some seed At least is sure to strike--’”