He smiled as if he were not astonished.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "It only said that I was coming and—here I am."
"I—I will go and tell papa; you will come and have some lunch?"
"No don't get up," he said, quickly putting out his hand to stay her. "I've had my lunch, and I can go and see Mr. Lisle presently if——," he paused. "Miss Leslie, I suppose you know why I have come down here?"
Leslie bent her head over her work. She could guess. Such a man as Mr. Ralph Duncombe was not likely to come down to such a place as Portmaris in obedience to a mere whim.
"I've come down because I said that I would come about this time," he went on, slowly and firmly, as if he had well rehearsed his speech—as, indeed, he had. "I'm a man who, when he has set his heart upon anything, doesn't change or give it up because he doesn't happen to get it all at once. I've set my heart upon making you my wife, Miss Leslie——."
Leslie's face flushed, and she made a motion as if to get up, but sank back again with a faint sigh of resignation.
"That's been my keenest wish and desire since I saw you two years ago; and it's just as keen, no less and no more, as it was the first half hour I spent in your society."
"You—you told me this before, Mr. Duncombe," said Leslie, not angrily nor impatiently, but very softly.
"I know," he assented. "And you told me that it couldn't be. And I suppose most men would have been satisfied—or dissatisfied, and given it up. But I'm not made like that. I shouldn't be where I am and what I am if I were. I dare say you think I'm obstinate."