t finished yet, my dear Mr. Burton," he said eagerly. "You
are making up your mind too hastily."

"A thousand pounds," Mr. Bomford repeated, condescendingly, "is a very
useful sum. Those peculiar gifts of yours may vanish. Take the advice
of a business man. Remember that you will still have two or three beans
left. It is only one we ask for. I want to put the matter on as broad
a basis as possible. We make our appeal on behalf of the cause of
science. You must not refuse us." Burton rose to his feet determinedly.
"Not only do I refuse," he said, "but it is not a matter which I am
inclined to discuss any longer. I am sorry if you are disappointed, but
my story was really told to Mr. Cowper here in confidence." He left
them both sitting there. He found Edith in a corner of the long
drawing-room. She was pretending to read.

"Whatever is the matter?" she asked. "I did not expect you so soon. I
thought that Mr. Bomford and father wanted to talk to you." "So they
did," he replied. "They made me a foolish offer. It was Mr. Bomford's
idea, I am sure, not your father's. I am tired, Edith. Come and walk
with me."--She glanced out of the window.

"I think," she said demurely, "that I am expected to go for a ride with
Mr. Bomford."

"Then please disappoint him," he pleaded. "I do not like your friend
Mr. Bomford. He is an egotistical and ignorant person. We will go
across the moors, we will climb our little hill. Perhaps we might even
wait there until the sunset."

"I am quite sure," she said decidedly, "that Mr. Bomford would not like
that."

"What does it matter?" he answered. "A man like Mr. Bomford has no
right to have any authority over you at all. You are of a different
clay. I am sure that you will never marry him. If you will not walk
with me, I shall work, and I am not in the humor for work. I shall
probably spoil one of my best chapters."

She rose to her feet.

"In the interests of your novel!" she murmured. "Come! Only we had
better go out by the back door."

Like children they stole out of the house. They climbed the rolling
moorland till they reached the hill on the further side of the valley.
She sat down, breathless, with her back against the trunk of a small
Scotch fir. Burton threw himself on to the ground by her side.

"We think too much always of consequences," he said "After this evening,
what does anything matter? The gorse is a flaming yellow; do you see
how it looks like a field of gold there i