"You forget, in the first place," says Mr. Temple haughtily, with an ominous frown on his face, "that Miss Marston is a lady; and in the second, you forget to whom you are speaking."
"Truly I am not thinking of you, sir," replies the gardener's son quietly and simply, "I am thinking of her. A young lady's good name is not a thing to be lightly played with."
"Therefore," says Mr. Temple impatiently, "I would advise you to take that very lesson to heart, and to tell those persons who are, as you say, making light of her good name--you are evidently acquainted with them--that it will be wise for them to choose other topics of gossip. I cannot acknowledge your right to address me on this matter, and this conversation must come to an end. Young ladies nowadays are perfectly well able to take care of themselves, and as a rule choose for themselves. We rougher creatures are often more sensitive than they, and more particular on certain points. And now let me tell you, my man, it is a dangerous thing for you to seek me out at night and address me on such a subject in the tone and manner you have assumed. You are speaking to a gentleman, remember. You----"
"Are not one," interposes the gardener's son, with sad significance; "I know it, sir."
"I will waive that, however, and say this much to you. If Miss Marston had constituted you her champion and had authorised you to speak, I should be willing to listen to you. But that is not the case, I presume, and I wish you goodnight."
The gardener's son twines his fingers convulsively. Were Mr. Temple his equal in station, it would have fared ill with him, smarting as the man is with passionate jealousy and the sting of unrequited love. He controls himself sufficiently to say,
"I must ask you one question, sir. Do you remain at Springfield?"
"No; I leave to-night, and I shall probably be absent for weeks. Ah, I perceive that answer is satisfactory to you. I see a lady approaching. Shall you or I retire?"
The gardener's son, casting one glance at the advancing form, walks slowly away, and his shadow is soon swallowed up by other shadows, among which he walks in pain and grief.
Nelly Marston is in no holiday humour; she is trembling with shame at the thought of what passed in the sick-chamber of her peevish mistress, and she approaches Mr. Temple with downcast head. Love and humiliation are fighting a desperate battle within her breast, and she does not respond sympathetically to her lover's glad greeting. He uses his best arts to soothe and comfort her; he addresses her by every endearing title, saying she is dearer to him than all the world, and beseeching her to throw all the rest aside. She listens in silence at the first, as he pours this sweet balm of Gilead upon her troubled soul. He is in his brightest mood, and his speech which tells the oft-told tale flows sweetly and tenderly. They stand beneath the stars, and he calls upon them to witness his love, his truth, his honour. Every word that falls from his lips sinks into her soul, and her heart is like a garden filled with unfading flowers. Humiliation and unrest melt into oblivion, never more to rise and agonise her. He loves her; he tells her so a hundred times and in a hundred ways. He will be true to her; he swears it by all the beautiful signs around them. Fairer and more lovely grows the night as he kisses away her tears. The moon rises higher in the heavens and bathes them in light. Softly, more tenderly he speaks, and she, like a child listens, listens--listens and believes, and hides her blushing face from him. Ah, if truth lives, it lives in him--in him, the symbol of all that is good and manly, and noble! She is so weak, he so strong! She knows so little, he so much! The sweet and enthralling words he whispers into her ears as her head lies upon his breast, form the first page of the brightest book that life can open to her; and the sighing of the breeze, the sleeping flowers, the hushed melody of the waving grass, the laughing, flashing lights of heaven playing about the dreamy shadows in the waters of the brook, are one and all delicious evidences of his truth, his honour, and his love.