Presently there was a knock at the door, and Mr. Plowden entered with a smile of forced gaiety on his face. “How do you do, Florence?” he said; “how do you do, dear Eva? You see I have come to see you early this morning. I want a little refreshment to enable me to get through my day’s duty. The early suitor has come to pick up the worm of his affections,” and he laughed at his joke. Florence shuddered at the simile, and thought to herself that there was a fair chance of the affectionate worm disagreeing with the early suitor. Eva said nothing. She sat quite still and pale. “Why, what is the matter with you both? Have you seen a ghost?” “Not exactly; but I think that Eva has received a message from the dead,” said Florence, with a nervous laugh. Eva rose. “I think, Mr. Plowden,” she said, “that I had better be frank with you at once. I ask you to listen to me for a few moments.” “Am I not always at your service, dear Eva?” “I wish,” began Eva, and broke down—“I wish,” she went on again, “to appeal to your generosity and to your feelings as a gentleman.” Florence smiled. Mr. Plowden bowed with mock humility and smiled too—a very ugly smile. “You are aware that, before I became engaged to you, I had had a previous—affair.” “With the boy who committed a murder,” put in Mr. Plowden. “With a gentleman who had the misfortune to kill a man in a duel,” explained Eva. “The Church and the law call it murder.” “Excuse me, Mr. Plowden, we are dealing neither with the Church nor the law; we are dealing with the thing as it is called among gentlemen and ladies.” “Go on,” said Mr. Plowden. “Well, misunderstandings, which I need not now enter into, arose with reference to that affair, though, as I told you, I loved the man. To-day I have heard from him, and his letter puts everything straight in my mind, and I see how wrong and unjust has been my behaviour to him, and I know that I love him more than ever.” “Curse the fellow’s impudence!” said the clergyman, furiously; “if he were here, I would give him a bit of my mind!” Eva’s spirit rose, and she turned on him with flashing eyes, looking like a queen in her imperial beauty. “If he were here, Mr. Plowden, you would not dare to look him in the face. Men like you only take advantage of the absent.” The clergyman ground his teeth. He felt his furious temper rising and did not dare to answer, though he was a bold man, in face of a woman. He feared lest it should get beyond him; but beneath his breath he muttered, “You shall pay for that, my lady!” “Under these circumstances,” went on Eva, “I appeal to you as a gentleman to release me from an engagement into which, as you know, I have been drawn more by force of circumstances than by my own wish. Surely, it is not necessary for me to say any more.” Mr. Plowden rose and came and stood quite close to her, so that his face was within a few inches of her eyes.