It did not seem unusual when he began--"I've got something to ask you. Don't you see how this place is like a part of Guy? Can't you tell me how to make him see that that mere mistake must be undone? It _is_ his. If he would but call it so. It is never out of his thoughts." "I think," said Constancy, looking straight before her, "that it ought to be his. And I think you have done all you can to make up to him. And I think you are quite right to want to make up, and to care about it. And, I am ashamed of having said I did not think so. I was horrid and narrow and small. I always have been, ever since I played ghost for fun. I'm a `finished and finite clod, untroubled by a spark.' That's all." "Oh, Constancy," cried Godfrey, unheeding, if recognising, this apt quotation. "You know that I've been a brute to Guy, and an ass about myself. Thank Heaven, Jeanie threw me over; she'll be married next month. I'm a mere duffer compared to you; but I love you with all my heart and soul, and if you would--" "Stop," she said, with a kind of dignity; "you mustn't _make_ me." She stood still, her face turned away. Once, when she had been asked what she would do with her life, she had answered, "Why, _live_ it, of course." Would the life now offered her be really her own? The simple yielding of the ideal maiden, to whom the lover comes as a great god, with all the gifts of life in his hand, is not for such as she. She knew very well now, that it was "a big situation." "Yes" was not easy to speak; but "No" was impossible. She turned towards him, pale, and with trembling lips. "I never thought I would," she said; "but--but you've been so _much_ better than I have--all through--if you can't be satisfied without me-- we'd better try it--some day." Rawdie was found, soon afterwards, sitting by himself in another part of the garden. He had retired with discretion. "And now, Guy," said Godfrey, by-and-by, when his tale was told, and Guy, after more sympathetic congratulations, had dryly remarked that it was fortunate that Mr Van Brunt's character and credit had proved above suspicion, "I want you to listen. "You know well enough which of us has carried on Aunt Waynflete's purpose. You know what she really meant, and that this wretched will was a mere mistake. But for you, the business would have gone to the dogs, and this place to the hammer, or, perhaps, to the devil; for, remember, I'm your own flesh and blood, and I know what this last year has been as well as you. And I can be just as determined. I took an oath, and I'll not break it. And, look here, that's as much an inward prompting of my soul as ever you knew in yours. It's my share of the work. Now, for once, you must give in." "Yes, I will, Godfrey," said Guy, "I'll give in. And, my boy, I wouldn't give the stoniest field in Waynflete for the finest estate in England; and I took it hard I hadn't got it. I loved it from the first moment I saw it, and now--"