whereas if you had a companion of
your own age, who could have the right to talk frankly to you, and go
about with you, and take care of you--"

By this time they had reached the little wooden bridge crossing the
stream, and Mackenzie and Ingram had got to the inn, where they stood in
front of the door in the moonlight. Before ascending the steps of the
bridge, Lavender, without pausing in his speech, took Sheila's hand and
said suddenly, "Now don't let me alarm you, Sheila, but suppose at some
distant day--as far away as you please--I came and asked you to let me
be your companion then and always, wouldn't you try?"

She looked up with a startled glance of fear in her eyes, and withdrew
her hand from him.

"No, don't be frightened," he said quite gently. "I don't ask you for
any promise. Sheila, you must know I love you--you must have seen it.
Will you not let me come to you at some future time--a long way
off--that you may tell me then? Won't you try to do that?"

There was more in the tone of his voice than in his words. The girl
stood irresolute for a second or two, regarding him with a strange,
wistful, earnest look; and then a great gentleness came into her eyes,
and she put out her hand to him and said in a low voice, "Perhaps."

But there was something so grave and simple about her manner at this
moment that he dared not somehow receive it as a lover receives the
first admission of love from the lips of a maiden. There had been
something of a strange inquiry in her face as she regarded him for a
second or two; and now that her eyes were bent on the ground it seemed
to him that she was trying to realize the full effect of the concession
she had made. He would not let her think. He took her hand and raised it
respectfully to his lips, and then he led her forward to the bridge. Not
a word was spoken between them while they crossed the shining space of
moonlight to the shadow of the house; and as they went indoors he caught
but one glimpse of her eyes, and they were friendly and kind toward him,
but evidently troubled. He saw her no more that night.

So he had asked Sheila to be his wife, and she had given him some timid
encouragement as to the future. Many a time within these last few days
had he sketched out an imaginative picture of the scene. He was familiar
with the passionate rapture of lovers on the stage, in books and in
pictures; and he had described himself (to himself) as intoxicated with
joy, anxio