When the mother and uncle came in, it was manifestly time for us to convey ourselves away.  Harold had come on foot from Mycening, but I was only too glad to walk my pony along the lanes, and have his company in the gathering winter twilight.

“You have spoken to her?” he said.

“Yes.  Harold, it is of no use.  She will never have him.”

“Her mother thinks she will.”

“Her mother knows what is in Viola no more than she knows what is in that star.  Has Dermot never said anything—­”

“Lady Diana made everyone promise not to say a word to him.”

“Oh!”

“But, Lucy, what hinders it?  There’s nothing else in the way, is there?”

I did not speak the word, but made a gesture of assent.

“May I know who it is,” said Harold in a voice of pain.  “Our poor fellow shall never hear.”

“Harold,” said I, “are you really so ridiculous as to think any girl could care for Eustace while you are by?”

“Don’t!” cried Harold, with a sound as of far more pain than gladness.

“But why not, Harry?  You asked me.”

“Don’t light up what I have been struggling to quench ever since I knew it.”

“Why?” I went on.  “You need not hold back on Eustace’s account.  I am quite sure nothing would make her accept him, and I am equally convinced—­”

“Hush, Lucy!” he said in a scarcely audible voice.  “It is profanation.  Remember—­”

“But all that is over,” I said.  “Things that happened when you were a mere boy, and knew no better, do not seem to belong to you now.”

“Sometimes they do not,” he said sadly; but—­”

“What is repented,” I began, but he interrupted.

“The fact is not changed.  It is not fit that the purest, gentlest, brightest creature made by Heaven should be named in the same day with one stained with blood—­aye, and deeds I could not speak of to you.”

I could not keep from crying as I said, “If I love you the more, Harry, would not she?”

“See here, Lucy,” said Harry, standing still with his hand on my rein; “you don’t know what you do in trying to inflame what I can hardly keep down.  The sweet little thing may have a fancy for me because I’m the biggest fellow she knows, and have done a thing or two; but what I am she knows less than even you do; and would it not be a wicked shame either to gain the tender heart in ignorance, or to thrust on it the knowledge and the pain of such a past as mine?” And his groan was very heavy, so that I cried out: 

“Oh, Harry! this is dreadful.  Do you give up all hope and joy for ever because of what you did as an ungovernable boy left to yourself?”

We went on for some time in silence; then he said in an indescribable tone, between wonder, disgust, and pity, “And I thought I loved Meg Cree!”