Sooner than that, I must do anything-the lowest and meanest thing: anything, right or wrong."

"I—I'm afraid you don't know what a girl is taken to mean, when she talks that way."

"It is what I said when I talked of doing something else for Alan. This is for Alan too."

"Oh—of course-for Alan! Yes. You did say that. I don't forget what you say. And there was no way, neither a right nor a wrong. And there is none now."

"Hundreds of girls-"

"Yes-hundreds of girls do hundreds of things well that you can't

"No. It is not all. There is something—well, that you can do,

that no other girl can do at all. Listen to me."

"What is it? I will do it, whatever it may be."

"You have no means left-no means at all?"

"I don't know how little-or how long what we have will last: but not for long; and then

"You will be absolutely without a penny in the world? Is that what you mean?"

"Utterly without a penny in the world."

"Yes-and then your brother will come back: wars don't last for ever, worse luck : I wish they did, with all my heart and soul. I suppose he will have some money due to him

"And it must be his. He must not come back to find he has to spend it all in paying his mother's and sister's bills for food and lodging. Alan-Alan must be rich-I alone know why. Do you think it was for the sake of the land that I wanted Copleston back for Alan ? "

"You won't listen. You don't know what I mean. I mean that whatever money is due to him will hardly keep him till he earns more. You don't know what these times are-talk of a girl earning enough to keep herself and her mother like ladies, when thousands of men, with brains and with muscles too, think themselves lucky if they can make some seventy pounds a year! Of course, I might be able to do something for him-but--"

"But for me, you were going to say? What is the one thing that you say even I can do?"

"And that you say you will do, whatever it may be. Be my wife."

He said "Be my wife," in so grave and simple a fashion, that

she was almost surprised at not feeling surprised. She certainly had no wish to become the wife of Gideon Skull, or of any man. But it was impossible to doubt that he was perfectly serious. And even if he had really understood her, he could not have done better than make his offer in that manner, without any of the conventional sentiment which can only become poetry by being shared. In truth, Gideon had been forced to bring out his question in that rough and almost savage fashion because he had a sort of a suspicion that there must be some fit and appropriate way of making love to ladies, if he only knew it; but that, not knowing it, instinct preferred the straight line to the risks of taking any haphazard and probably altogether misleading curve. If he had begun by talking to her like a lover, so as to lead up gracefully and poetically to its climax, she would have known how to answer him very well: but the more delicate style, though it had been beaten out over days and weeks of wooing, would not have had half the effect upon a girl who did not love him of this sudden command. There must needs be more heart and strength in one of three words than in ten of three thousand. If a woman loves, she prefers the three thousand, for the sake of prolonging the pleasure. But Helen would not have listened to the three thousand; and she could not help listening to the three.

She did not answer him at all. What is there about plain questions that always makes it impossible to answer them plainly? It was not a common case of the proverb about the Castle that speaks and the Woman who does not know what to say. She was neither lost nor won. But she could not say a plain "No" that might serve once for all. He deserved more than the most grateful "No" that her heart could spell. He was rich: she was poor. He was an absolutely free man; her husband must take, with her, the accompanying burdens of an unmanageable mother and a brother whose fortune had to be made. He was certainly not a man of birth or rank but had he been a ragpicker, and the son-if only the lawful son—of a ragpicker, he would have had to stoop to the hand of a girl with no birth, no honest calling, and no name. He must care for her, or his "Be my wife" would have been the words of a madman. She had come to feel so low, and so helpless, and so contemptible in her own eyes, that any man who could possibly want her seemed to have a sort of right to her. Not every man may lawfully take possession of a pearl that comes in his way but the common broken shell cannot say to any chance finder with a fancy for its worthless fragments, "No: you have no right to me; I don't belong

to you." The pearl can belong to one only, but its shell to anybody in the world.

"Yes. Be my wife," said Gideon again: this time more humbly, and with some tone of pleading. And, though he believed that she was drawing him deliberately into her net, the humbler and more pleading tone was no mere form. He had felt to-day as if there were something about her which she could not sell him : and he wanted this too.

"I shall never marry anybody," said Helen-quite quietly, and as if an offer of marriage were as common as a Good Morning. For that matter, with her it had really become as common a thing. "I suppose you are sorry for me, as strong men always are for creatures that can't help themselves. I have felt like that for broken-winged birds; but I haven't wanted to marry them.-Oh, you don't know how grateful I am! Much too grateful to thank a friend who cares for me and mine by giving him a bad wife, such as I should be."

"That is all nonsense," said Gideon roughly, in the tone he used when brought face to face with any form of the hypocrisy which he despised. "I dare say you would make a bad wife to ninety-nine men out of a hundred. That's nothing to me. I'm the hundredth man. And if I wasn't, I know what I want: I always know what I want, and I mostly get it too."

They were not alone in the park, but love-making like this might have been made in the public streets-he might have been a heavy father who was making the course of true love as rough as he could for some troublesome and obstinate daughter, so far as any passer-by could tell. His last words, so far as they implied a boast beforehand, gave a little prick to the pride that Helen chose to think was dead and buried in her.

"I have said my say," said she. "Thank you with all my heart and soul for giving me a new belief-if you say you care for me, it must be true, seeing what you are, and what I am. But I am married to Alan, you know. I am glad you are his friend."

"So, she wants to drive a bargain?" thought Gideon. "Well, with all my heart-that's only natural and fair. Only, confound that eternal brother of hers, all the same. . . . Of course," he said, “I don't expect you-yet awhile-to care a straw for me, except as for a man who can help you. As for the rest-well, I'm not afraideverything in its own time. I shall never let you hate me, anyhow. As a man who can help you, then-can, yes, and will, while he has a shilling or a drop of blood left to spend for you; for you and yours. Why, I wouldn't feel jealous if you married me only to climb by. What else do women marry men for? They get to like the ladder

for its own sake, afterwards, often enough to make the risk worth running. Do you suppose any man, who isn't quite an idiot, thinks a woman wants to marry him for the sake of his beauty, or his wisdom, or his virtue, or the way he does his hair? Why, a woman might just as well think that a man wants to marry her best gown. I don't ask you to care for me-I'm content to run that chance-Helen. I know it isn't like blockade-running, where it's eleven to one against winning, but where, to win once, it's worth while to lose ten times. One can't marry eleven wives. But I swear I'd rather lose ten times over with you than win a hundred times running with any woman in the world. . . . . Think. Think what it would be for that conffor Alan to have a sister married to a man worth at least ten thousand a year, and a man, too, who could put him in the way of making ten thousand a year of his own. Why, he might buy back Coplestonwho knows? And, if he didn't, Copleston isn't the only place in England. There's your mother, too-think of her. She'd be angry at first, of course, but she'd thank you in a year. And you-who would do anything for Alan, right or wrong-stand thinking and doubting as soon as a real chance comes to you! . . . . It's not as if I were old enough to be your grandfather, or a sick man whom you'd have to nurse, or a miser, or any worse than his neighbours in any How many men can say, as I can, that I never loved a woman till I saw the one, the first that I ever wanted to be my wife—and the last too? . . . . I want you in my life; that's enough for me. I can do all things that you want done; that should be more than enough for you."

way.

This see-saw between real but uneloquent passion and the most prosaic bargaining contained many coarse touches which Gideon might have avoided had he kept to few strong words, and which a girl who had ever been brought into contact with real coarseness in any shape could hardly have failed to see. But a woman must have the too late experience of many years before she can tell when and how a man is not a gentleman, however well she can tell by instinct when he is one. As it was, he had said many things that jarred upon her; but no more than all romantic prejudice must needs be jarred upon by inexorable prose.

“You mean—that you want to marry me for Alan's sake?" she asked. "No-it is impossible--"

"No," said Gideon. "It is not for Alan's sake that I want to marry you. It is for my own sake, as selfishly as you please. It isn't even for yours; it's for my own. But if it is only for Alan's sake you would marry me-let it be for Alan's sake. Any sake will

do. I shall know why you marry me, never fear. I shall try to make you care for me a great deal; but, if you can't, I will remember why you married me-Alan shan't lose. In spite of himself, he shall be as rich as a Jew. As his friend and well-wisher, I can help him to a crumb or two; but how can I do what a rich sister can? When Waldron bursts up-as he must-I'll find the money to buy back Copleston. Helen-I only want you."

It certainly did feel to her like a piece of miserable weakness that she, who had once gone so far as to dream, for Alan's sake, of bringing to her feet a villain like Waldron, should feel the least scruple about taking advantage of Gideon Skull. "All for Alan," indeed, when she was hesitating over the only thing that was left her to do for him— a great thing for him—and in that case, what could it matter what it would be for her? The sacrifice, if it were one, ought to be only too easy. There was simply no sort of intelligible objection to Gideon, except a certain want of polish and of refinement in thought—and even this was a wholesome contrast to the smooth ways which she had learned to associate with all things false and mean. He was a strong and true man; one on whom, as on a tower of strength, any woman or any man might safely lean. It was not as if he were one by whom, even if no love ever came, a wife would find it hard to do her duty, while it would be easy to give him respect, gratitude, and honour. There was something almost touching, and certainly balmlike to her pride, in his eagerness to give her all things for the sake of a chance of liking in return. And, above all, it was not as if he asked her to come to him on false pretences, professing, either by words or silence, a love which she could not feel. There was no first love to stand in her way; she was called upon to be false neither to him nor to any man-how could she pause twice before such an All for Alan?

She was even ashamed of pausing. But she did pause; and Gideon, wondering what he could possibly have omitted to urge, had to leave her that morning disappointed, anxious, and hardly answered. But her No had not been a real No-certainly not such a No as she could bring back to her mother. Helen had wholly learned that, whatever she did, she must take her whole life into her own hands. It was in spite of herself that her mother must be saved.