ing that it must be a messenger from the village, dispatched
in search of Lettice with the news of her
father's death. For a moment the horse seemed to
be stopping; he was afraid that his opportunity had
been lost; but, after all, the hoof-beats passed, diminished
over the road. Then, "Since I have lost
everything," he repeated.

"Please tell me more," she demanded, "I don't
understand--"

"But," he continued, in the manner he had hastily
adopted, "when the time came I couldn't; I couldn't
go away and leave you. I thought, perhaps, you
might be different from others; I thought, perhaps,
you might like a man for what he was, and not for
what he had. I would come to you, I decided, and
tell you all this, tell you that I could work, yes, and
would, and make enough--" He paused in order
to observe the effect of his speech upon her. She
was gazing clear-eyed at him, in a sort of shining
expectancy, a grave, eager comprehension, appealing,
incongruous, to her girlhood.

"But why?" she queried.

"Because I'm in love with you: I want to marry
you."

Her gaze did not falter, but her color changed
swiftly, a rosy tide swept over her cheeks, and died
away, leaving her pale. Her lips trembled. A palpable,
radiant content settled upon her.

[[142]]

p141 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p142w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p143

v?