She started back, and the surprise which was so obvious in her wrought even greater surprise in him that it should be so. It was difficult to believe that she had been quite blind to the situation, and yet all reason and common sense went to prove that she was not acting. ‘You take me quite unawares by such a question!’ she said, with a forced laugh of uneasiness. It was the first time she had shown any embarrassment at all. ‘Why,’ she added, ‘I couldn’t marry you for the world.’ ‘Not after all this! Why not?’ ‘It is—I would—I really think I may say it—I would upon the whole rather marry you, Mr. Barnet, than any other man I have ever met, if I ever dreamed of marriage again. But I don’t dream of it—it is quite out of my thoughts; I have not the least intention of marrying again.’ ‘But—on my account—couldn’t you alter your plans a little? Come!’ ‘Dear Mr. Barnet,’ she said with a little flutter, ‘I would on your account if on anybody’s in existence. But you don’t know in the least what it is you are asking—such an impracticable thing—I won’t say ridiculous, of course, because I see that you are really in earnest, and earnestness is never ridiculous to my mind.’ ‘Well, yes,’ said Barnet more slowly, dropping her hand, which he had taken at the moment of pleading, ‘I am in earnest. The resolve, two months ago, at the Cape, to come back once more was, it is true, rather sudden, and as I see now, not well considered. But I am in earnest in asking.’ ‘And I in declining. With all good feeling and all kindness, let me say that I am quite opposed to the idea of marrying a second time.’ ‘Well, no harm has been done,’ he answered, with the same subdued and tender humorousness that he had shown on such occasions in early life. ‘If you really won’t accept me, I must put up with it, I suppose.’ His eye fell on the clock as he spoke. ‘Had you any notion that it was so late?’ he asked. ‘How absorbed I have been!’ She accompanied him to the hall, helped him to put on his overcoat, and let him out of the house herself. ‘Good-night,’ said Barnet, on the doorstep, as the lamp shone in his face. ‘You are not offended with me?’ ‘Certainly not. Nor you with me?’ ‘I’ll consider whether I am or not,’ he pleasantly replied. ‘Good-night.’