"Yes, I do. And if you look a little farther, ought she to sacrifice the happiness of the man who loves her, in addition to her own?" She blushed again, more deeply, and glanced away from him over the ragged garden steeped in the languorous peace of a summer sunset. "You see"--she hesitated--"I know nothing about--love." The word was spoken timidly, with modest reluctance. "Sooner or later you are bound to learn its meaning," he said, controlling his impulse to declare that he would teach her. He recognised the risk of precipitancy; she must not be alarmed. As it was, she turned uneasily aside avoiding his gaze; said they ought to go back, it was getting late, Mrs. Coventry would be waiting for him; nervously polite little sentences. In silence he followed her along the path that led to the door in the garden wall, noting the grace of her slender form, the glint of the curls that lay on her neck, the cream of the skin beneath the curls. When they arrived at the door he said abruptly: "I watched you go through here that morning. You had no hat on, and you were singing a hymn." He was trying to close the door that was warped and stiff, so he missed the puzzled astonishment in her eyes. "But how could you have seen me? It was ever so long before you came to the house." "It was _why_ I came to the house." He banged the door impatiently and faced her. "It was why I came _back_," he added with emphasis. Colour flooded Rafella's face; he thought how adorably she blushed. "Oh," she gasped; "but I thought it was because of a stone in your horse's shoe. Didn't you tell the truth?" she questioned severely. He laughed, delighting in her naive sense of honesty. "There was a stone all right, I can assure you, and I blessed the excuse. All the same, I should have come back on some pretext or another. I could hardly have rung the front door bell and said I had observed a young lady with golden hair go through this door, and that I wanted to see her again. Now, could I?" She turned away, confused, agitated, utterly unable to confront the tender banter in his eyes. But he had not quite done. As they went into the vicarage he asked boldly: "Can I come again, very soon, and talk to you in the garden?" Though she made no answer he did not feel rebuffed. CHAPTER III SUCCESS Some three weeks later George Coventry proposed to Rafella Forte, but not among the roses in the sunshine, as he had so often pictured, for rain was coming down with inconsiderate persistence. The proposal took place in the church porch, where they lingered after choir practice, hoping it might clear. His visits had been frequent since the day of the sale; and once he had persuaded the vicar and his daughter to spend an afternoon at his mother's house, conveying them to and fro at his own expense in the ever-available wagonette supplied by the country town inn.