"Rachel!" Rowan said, stepping up to her and tendering his hand to her. "I have come to answer your letter in person."
"I knew," she said, "when I wrote it, that my letter did not deserve any answer. I did not expect an answer."
"But am I wrong now to bring you one in person? I have thought so much of seeing you again! Will you not say a word of welcome to me?"
"I am glad to see you, Mr. Rowan."
"Mr. Rowan! Nay; if it is to be Mr. Rowan I may as well go back to Baslehurst. It has come to that, that it must be Luke now, or there must be no naming of names between us. You chided me once when I called you Rachel."
"You called me so once, sir, when I should have chided you and did not. I remember it well. You were very wrong, and I was very foolish."
"But I may call you Rachel now?" Then, when she did not answer him at the moment, he asked the question again in that imperious way which was common with him. "May I not call you now as I please? If it be not so my coming here is useless. Come, Rachel, say one word to me boldly. Do you love me well enough to be my wife?"
She was standing at the open window, looking away from him, while he remained at a little distance from her as though he would not come close to her till he had exacted from her some positive assurance of her love as a penance for the fault committed by her letter. He certainly was not a soft lover, nor by any means inclined to abate his own privileges. He paused a moment as though he thought that his last question must elicit a plain reply. But no reply to it came. She still looked away from him through the window, as though resolved that she would not speak till his mood should have become more tender.
"You said something in your letter," he continued, "about my affairs here in Baslehurst being unsettled. I would not show myself here again till that matter was arranged."
"It was not I," she said, turning sharply round upon him. "It was not I who thought that."