On the following morning there was of course a considerable amount of conversation at the Vicarage as to the affairs of the previous evening. There was first of all an examination of the fruit; but as this was made without taking Jem the gardener into confidence, no certain conclusion could be reached. It was clear, however, that no robbery for the purpose of sale had been made. An apricot or two might have been taken, and perhaps an assault made on an unripe peach. Mr. Fenwick was himself nearly sure that garden spoliation was not the purpose of the assailants, though it suited him to let his wife entertain that idea. The men would hardly have come from the kitchen garden up to the house and round the corner at which he had met them, if they were seeking fruit. Presuming it to have been their intention to attempt the drawing-room windows, he would have expected to meet them as he did meet them. From the garden the Vicar and the two ladies went down to the gate, and from thence over the stile to Farmer Trumbull’s farmyard. The farmer had not again seen the men, after the Squire had left him, nor had he heard them. To him the parson said nothing of his encounter, and nothing of that blow on the man’s back. From thence Mr. Fenwick went on to the town, and the ladies returned to the Vicarage.

The only person whom the parson at once consulted was the surgeon,—Dr. Cuttenden, as he was called. No man with an injured shoulder-blade had come to him last night or that morning. A man, he said, might receive a very violent blow on his back, in the manner in which the fellow had been struck, and might be disabled for days from any great personal exertion, without having a bone broken. If the blade of his shoulder were broken, the man—so thought the doctor—could not travel far on foot, would hardly be able to get away to any of the neighbouring towns unless he were carried. Of Sam Brattle the parson said nothing to the doctor; but when he had finished his morning’s work about the town, he walked on to the mill.

In the mean time the two ladies remained at home at the Parsonage. The excitement occasioned by the events of the previous night was probably a little damaged by the knowledge that Mr. Gilmore was coming. The coming of Mr. Gilmore on this occasion was so important that even the terrible idea of burglars, and the sensation arising from the use of that deadly weapon which had been produced at the breakfast table during the morning, were robbed of some of their interest. They did not keep possession of the minds of the two ladies as they would have done had there been no violent interrupting cause. But here was the violent interrupting cause, and by the time that lunch was on the table, Sam Brattle and his comrades were forgotten.

Very little was said between the two women on that morning respecting Mr. Gilmore. Mrs. Fenwick, who had allowed herself to be convinced that Mary would act with great impropriety if she did not accept the man, thought that further speech might only render her friend obstinate. Mary, who knew the inside of her friend’s mind very clearly, and who loved and respected her friend, could hardly fix her own mind. During the past night it had been fixed, or nearly fixed, two different ways. She had first determined that she would refuse her lover,—as to which resolve, for some hours or so, she had been very firm; then that she would accept him,—as to which she had ever, when most that way inclined, entertained some doubt as to the possibility of her uttering that word “Yes.”

“If it be that other women don’t love better than I love him, I wonder that they ever get married at all,” she said to herself.

She was told that she was wrong to keep the man in suspense, and she believed it. Had she not been so told, she would have thought that some further waiting would have been of the three alternatives the best.

“I shall be upstairs with the bairns,” said Mrs. Fenwick, as she left the dining-room after lunch, “so that if you prefer the garden to the drawing-room, it will be free.”

“Oh dear, how solemn and ceremonious you make it.”

“It is solemn, Mary; I don’t know how anything can be more solemn, short of going to heaven or the other place. But I really don’t see why there should be any doubt or difficulty.”

There was something in the tone in which these words were said which almost made Mary Lowther again decide against the man. The man had a home and an income, and was Squire of the parish; and therefore there need be no difficulty! When she compared Mr. Fenwick and Mr. Gilmore together, she found that she liked Mr. Fenwick the best. She thought him to be the more clever, the higher spirited, the most of a man of the two. She certainly was not the least in love with her friend’s husband; but then she was just as little in love with Mr. Gilmore.

At about half-past two Mr. Gilmore made his appearance, standing at the open window.

“May I come in?” he said.

“Of course you may come in.”

“Mrs. Fenwick is not here?”

“She is in the house, I think, if you want her.”

“Oh no. I hope you were not frightened last night. I have not seen Frank this morning; but I hear from Mr. Trumbull that there was something of a row.”

“There was a row, certainly. Mr. Fenwick struck some of the men, and he is afraid that he hurt one of them.”

“I wish he had broken their heads. I take it there was a son of one of my tenants there, who is about as bad as he can be. Frank will believe me now. I hope you were not frightened here.”

“I heard nothing of it till this morning.”

After that there was a pause. He had told himself as he came along that the task before him could not be easy and pleasant. To declare a passion to the girl he loves may be very pleasant work to the man who feels almost sure that his answer will not be against him. It may be an easy task enough even when there is a doubt. The very possession of the passion,—or even its pretence,—gives the man a liberty which he has a pleasure and a pride in using. But this is the case when the man dashes boldly at his purpose without preconcerted arrangements. Such pleasure, if it ever was a pleasure to him,—such excitement at least, was come and gone with Harry Gilmore. He had told his tale, and had been desired to wait. Now he had come again at a fixed hour to be informed—like a servant waiting for a place—whether it was thought that he would suit. The servant out of place, however, would have had this advantage, that he would receive his answer without the necessity of further eloquence on his own part. With the lover it was different. It was evident that Mary Lowther would not say to him, “I have considered the matter, and I think that, upon the whole, you will do.” It was necessary that he should ask the question again, and ask it as a suppliant.

“Mary,” he said, beginning with words that he had fixed for himself as he came up the garden, “it is six weeks, I think, since I asked you to be my wife; and now I have come to ask you again.”

She made him no immediate answer, but sat as though waiting for some further effort of his eloquence.

“I do not think you doubt my truth, or the warmth of my affection. If you trust in them—”

“I do; I do.”

“Then I don’t know that I can say anything further. Nothing that I can say now will make you love me. I have not that sort of power which would compel a girl to come into my arms.”

“I don’t understand that kind of power,—how any man can have it with any girl.”

“They say that it is so; but I do not flatter myself that it is so with me; and I do not think that it would be so with any man over you. Perhaps I may assure you that, as far as I know myself at present, all my future happiness must depend on your answer. It will not kill me—to be refused; at least, I suppose not. But it will make me wish that it would.” Having so spoken he waited for her reply.

She believed every word that he said. And she liked him so well that, for his own sake, she desired that he might be gratified. As far as she knew herself, she had no desire to be Harry Gilmore’s wife. The position was not even one in which she could allow herself to look for consolation on one side, for disappointments on the other. She had read about love, and talked about love; and she desired to be in love. Certainly she was not in love with this man. She had begun to doubt whether it would ever be given to her to love,—to love as her friend Janet loved Frank Fenwick. Janet loved her husband’s very footsteps, and seemed to eat with his palate, hear with his ears, and see with his eyes. She was, as it were, absolutely a bone from her husband’s rib. Mary thought that she was sure that she could never have that same feeling towards Henry Gilmore. And yet it might come; or something might come which would do almost as well. It was likely that Janet’s nature was softer and sweeter than her own,—more prone to adapt itself, like ivy to a strong tree. For herself, it might be, that she could never become as the ivy; but that, nevertheless, she might be the true wife of a true husband. But if ever she was to be the true wife of Harry Gilmore, she could not to-day say that it should be so.

“I suppose I must answer you,” she said, very gently.

“If you tell me that you are not ready to do so I will wait, and come again. I shall never change my mind. You may be sure of that.”

“But that is just what I may not do, Mr. Gilmore.”

“Who says so?”

“My own feelings tell me so. I have no right to keep you in suspense, and I will not do it. I respect and esteem you most honestly. I have so much liking for you that I do not mind owning that I wish that it were more. Mr. Gilmore, I like you so much that I would make a great sacrifice for you; but I cannot sacrifice my own honesty or your happiness by making believe that I love you.”

For a few moments he sat silent, and then there came over his face a look of inexpressible anguish,—a look as though the pain were almost more than he could bear. She could not keep her eyes from his face; and, in her woman’s pity, she almost wished that her words had been different.

“And must that be all?” he asked.

“What else can I say, Mr. Gilmore?”

“If that must be all, it will be to me a doom that I shall not know how to bear. I cannot live here without you. I have thought about you till you have become mixed with every tree and every cottage about the place. I did not know of myself that I could become such a slave to a passion. Mary, say that you will wait again. Try it once more. I would not ask for this, but that you have told me that there was no one else.”

“Certainly, there is no one else.”

“Then let me wait again. It can do you no harm. If there should come any man more fortunate than I am, you can tell me, and I shall know that it is over. I ask no sacrifice from you, and no pledge; but I give you mine. I shall not change.”

“There must be no such promise, Mr. Gilmore.”

“But there is the promise. I certainly shall not change. When three months are over I will come to you again.”

She tried to think whether she was bound to tell him that her answer must be taken as final, or whether she might allow the matter to stand as he proposed, with some chance of a result that might be good for him. On one point she was quite sure,—that if she left him now, with an understanding that he should again renew his offer after a period of three months, she must go away from Bullhampton. If there was any possibility that she should learn to love him, such feeling would arise within her more quickly in his absence than in his presence. She would go home to Loring, and try to bring herself to accept him.

“I think,” she said, “that what we now say had better be the last of it.”

“It shall not be the last of it. I will try again. What is there that I can do, so that I may make myself worthy of you?”

“It is no question of worthiness, Mr. Gilmore. Who can say how his heart is moved,—and why? I shall go home to Loring; and you may be sure of this, that if there be anything that you should hear of me, I will let you know.”

Then he took her hand in his own, held it for a while, pressed it to his lips, and left her. She was by no means contented with herself, and, to tell the truth, was ashamed to let her friend know what she had done. And yet how could she have answered him in other words? It might be that she could teach herself to be contented with the amount of regard which she entertained for him. It might be that she could persuade herself to be his wife; and if so, why should he not have the chance,—the chance which he professed that he was so anxious to retain? He had paid her the greatest compliment which a man can pay a woman, and she owed him everything,—except herself. She was hardly sure even now that if the proposition had come to her by letter the answer might not have been of a different nature.

As soon as he was gone she went upstairs to the nursery, and thence to Mrs. Fenwick’s bedroom. Flo was there, but Flo was soon dismissed. Mary began her story instantly, before a question could be asked.

“Janet,” she said, “I am going home—at once.”

“Why so?”

“Because it is best. Nothing more is settled than was settled before. When he asks me whether he may come again, how can I say that he may not? What can I say, except that as far I can see now, I cannot be his wife?”

“You have not accepted him, then?”

“No.”

“I believe that you would, if he had asked you last night.”

“Most certainly I should not. I may doubt when I am talking behind his back; but when I meet him face to face I cannot do it.”

“I think you have been wrong,—very wrong and very foolish.”

“In not taking a man I do not love?” said Mary.

“You do love him; but you are longing for you do not know what; some romance,—some grand passion,—something that will never come.”

“Shall I tell you what I want?”

“If you please.”

“A feeling such as you have for Frank. You are my model; I want nothing beyond that.”

“That comes after marriage. Frank was very little to me till we were man and wife. He’ll tell you the same. I don’t know whether I didn’t almost dislike him when I married him.”

“Oh, Janet!”

“Certainly the sort of love you are thinking of comes afterwards;—when the interests of two people are the same. Frank was very well as a lover.”

“Don’t I remember it?”

“You were a child.”

“I was fifteen; and don’t I remember how all the world used to change for you when he was coming? There wasn’t a ribbon you wore but you wore it for him; you dressed yourself in his eyes; you lived by his thoughts.”

“That was all after I was engaged. If you would accept Harry Gilmore, you would do just the same.”

“I must be sure that it would be so. I am now almost sure that it would not.”

“And why do you want to go home?”

“That he may not be pestered by having me near him. I think it will be better for him that I should go.”

“And he is to ask you again?”

“He says that he will—in three months. But you should tell him that it will be better that he should not. I would advise him to travel,—if I were his friend, like you.”

“And leave all his duties, and his pleasures, and his house, and his property, because of your face and figure, my dear! I don’t think any woman is worth so much to a man.”

Mary bit her lips in sorrow for what she had said. “I was thinking of his own speech about himself, Janet, not of my worth. It does not astonish you more than it does me that such a man as Mr. Gilmore should be perplexed in spirit for such a cause. But he says that he is perplexed.”

“Of course he is perplexed, and of course I was in joke. Only it does seem so hard upon him! I should like to shake you till you fell into his arms. I know it would be best for you. You will go on examining your own feelings and doubting about your heart, and waiting for something that will never come till you will have lost your time. That is the way old maids are made. If you married Harry, by the time your first child was born you would think that he was Jupiter,—just as I think that Frank is.”

Mrs. Fenwick owned, however, that as matters stood at present, it would be best that Mary should return home; and letters were written that afternoon to say that she would be at Loring by the middle of next week.

The Vicar was not seen till dinner-time, and then he came home in considerable perplexity of spirit. It was agreed between the two women that the fate of Harry Gilmore, as far as it had been decided, should be told to Mr. Fenwick by his wife; and she, though she was vexed, and almost angry with Mary, promised to make the best of it.

“She’ll lose him at last; that’ll be the end of it,” said the parson, as he scoured his face with a towel after washing it.

“I never saw a man so much in love in my life,” said Mrs. Fenwick.

“But iron won’t remain long at red heat,” said he. “What she says herself would be the best for him. He’ll break up and go away for a time, and then, when he comes back, there’ll be somebody else. She’ll live to repent it.”

“When she’s away from him there may be a change.”

“Fiddlestick!” said the parson.

Mary, when she met him before dinner, could see that he was angry with her, but she bore it with the utmost meekness. She believed of herself that she was much to blame in that she could not fall in love with Harry Gilmore. Mrs. Fenwick had also asked a question or two about Sam Brattle during the dressing of her husband; but he had declined to say anything on that subject till they two should be secluded together for the night.