catch her looking at me with a frown, and then, as if to make up to her own nature—­and a more loving nature never came into this world, that I shall maintain to my dying day—­she would go to her father and kiss him.  When I talked with him she pretended not to notice, but I could see her face grow cold and stubborn.  I am not quick; and it was a long time before I understood that she was jealous, she wanted him all to herself.  I’ve often wondered how she could be his daughter, for he was the very soul of justice and a slow man too—­and she was as quick as a bird.  For a long time after I saw her dislike of me, I refused to believe it—­if one does not want to believe a thing there are always reasons why it should not seem true, at least so it is with me, and I suppose with all selfish men.

“I spent evening after evening there, when, if I had not thought only of myself, I should have kept away.  But one day I could no longer be blind.

“It was a Sunday in February.  I always had an invitation on Sundays to dine with them in the middle of the day.  There was no one in the sitting-room; but the door of Eilie’s bedroom was open.  I heard her voice:  ‘That man, always that man!’ It was enough for me, I went down again without coming in, and walked about all day.

“For three weeks I kept away.  To the school of course I came as usual, but not upstairs.  I don’t know what I told Dalton—­it did not signify what you told him, he always had a theory of his own, and was persuaded of its truth—­a very single-minded man, sir.

“But now I come to the most wonderful days of my life.  It was an early spring that year.  I had fallen away already from my resolution, and used to slink up—­seldom, it’s true—­and spend the evening with them as before.  One afternoon I came up to the sitting-room; the light was failing—­it was warm, and the windows were open.  In the air was that feeling which comes to you once a year, in the spring, no matter where you may be, in a crowded street, or alone in a forest; only once—­a feeling like—­but I cannot describe it.

“Eilie was sitting there.  If you don’t know, sir, I can’t tell you what it means to be near the woman one loves.  She was leaning on the windowsill, staring down into the street.  It was as though she might be looking out for some one.  I stood, hardly breathing.  She turned her head, and saw me.  Her eyes were strange.  They seemed to ask me a question.  But I couldn’t have spoken for the world.  I can’t tell you what I felt—­I dared not speak, or think, or hope.  I have been in nineteen battles—­several times in positions of some danger, when the lifting of a finger perhaps meant death; but I have never felt what I was feeling at that moment.  I knew something was coming; and I was paralysed with terror lest it should not come!” He drew a long breath.