She seated herself on a stone beside the well; and Brian also sat down, but rather below her, so that he seemed to be sitting at her feet, and could look up into her face when he spoke. He kept silence at first, but said at last, with gentle deference of tone:-- "Miss Murray, there was something that you said you would tell me when you had the opportunity." She paused before she answered. "Not just now," he understood her to say at last, but her words were low and indistinct. "Then--may I tell you something?" She spoke more clearly in reply. "I think not." "Forgive me for saying so, but you must hear it some time. Why not now?" She did not speak. Her colour varied a little, and her brows contracted with a slight look of pain. "I do not know how to be silent any longer," he said, raising his eyes to her face, with a grave and manly resolve in their brown depths. "I have thought a great deal about it--about you; and it seems to me that there is no real reason why I should not speak. You are of age; you can do as you please; and I could work for both--because--Elizabeth--I love you." It was brokenly, awkwardly said, after all; but more completely uttered, perhaps, than if he had told his tale at greater length, for then he would have been stopped before he reached the end. As it was, Elizabeth's look of terror and dismay brought him to a sudden pause. "Oh, no!" she said, "no; you don't mean that. Take back what you have said, Mr. Stretton." "I cannot take it back," he said, quickly, "and I would not if I could; because you love me, too." The conviction of his words made her turn pale. She darted a distressed look at him, half-rose from her seat, and then sat down again. Twice she tried to speak and failed, for her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. But at last she found her voice. "You do not know," she said, hurriedly and hoarsely, "that I am engaged to my cousin Percival." He rose to his feet, and withdrew two or three paces, looking down on her in silent consternation. She did not lift her eyes, but she felt that his gaze was upon her. It seemed to pierce to the very marrow of her bones, to the bottom of her heart. "Is this true?" he said at last, in a voice as changed as her own had been--hoarse and broken almost beyond recognition. "And you never told me?" "Why should I have told you? Only my uncle knows. It was a secret," she answered, in a clearer and colder tone. "I am sorry you did not know." "So am I. God knows that I am sorry," said the young man, turning away to hide the look of bitter despair and disappointment, which he could not help but feel was too visibly imprinted on his face. "For if I had known, I might never have dared to love you. If I had known, I should never have dreamt of you as my wife."