word, if that be possible."

"Then you did propose to her?"

"No; hardly that. I cannot tell what I said myself; but 'twas thus
she answered me."

"But what do you mean by taking a lesson from her? Has she any such
suffering?"

"Nay! You may ask her. I did not."

"But you said so just now; at any rate you left me to infer it. Is
there any one whom Adela Gauntlet really loves?"

George Bertram did not answer the question at once. He had plighted
his word to her as her friend that he would keep her secret; and
then, moreover, that secret had become known to him by mere guesses.
He had no right, by any law, to say it as a fact that Adela Gauntlet
was not heart-whole. But still he thought that he would say so. Why
should he not do something towards making these two people happy?

"Do you believe that Adela is really in love with any one?" repeated
Arthur.

"If I tell you that, will you tell me this--Are you in love with any
one--you yourself?"

The young clergyman was again ruby red up to his forehead. He could
dare to talk about Adela, but hardly about himself.

"I in love!" he said at last. "You know that I have been obliged to
keep out of that kind of thing. Circumstanced as I have been, I could
not marry."

"But that does not keep a man from falling in love."

"Does not it?" said Arthur, rather innocently.

"That has not preserved me--nor, I presume, has it preserved you.
Come, Arthur, be honest; if a man with thirty-nine articles round his
neck can be honest. Out with the truth at once. Do you love Adela, or
do you not?"

But the truth would not come out so easily. Whether it was
the thirty-nine articles, or the natural modesty of the man's
disposition, I will not say; but he did not find himself at the
moment able to give a downright answer to this downright question.
He would have been well pleased that Bertram should know the whole
truth; but the task of telling it went against the grain with him.

"If you do, and do not tell her so," continued Bertram, when he found
that he got no immediate reply, "I shall think you--. But no; a man
must be his own judge in such matters, and of all men I am the least
fit to be a judge of others. But I would that it might be so, for
both your sakes."

"Why, you say yourself that she likes some one else."

"I have never said so. I have said nothing like it. There; when
you get home, do you yourself ask her whom she loves. But remember
this--if it should chanc