"'What dare you expect me to say?'
"'What I am dying and perishing to hear; what I must and will hear; what you dare not now suppress.'
"'Mr. Moore, I hardly know what you mean. You are not like yourself.'
"I suppose I hardly was like my usual self, for I scared her—that I could see. It was right: she must be scared to be won.
"'You do know what I mean, and for the first time I stand before you myself. I have flung off the tutor, and beg to introduce you to the man. And remember, he is a gentleman.'
"She trembled. She put her hand to mine as if to remove it from the lock. She might as well have tried to loosen, by her soft touch, metal welded to metal. She felt she was powerless, and receded; and again she trembled.
"What change I underwent I cannot explain, but out of her emotion passed into me a new spirit. I neither was crushed nor elated by her lands and gold; I thought not of them, cared not for them. They were nothing—dross that could not dismay me. I saw only herself—her young beautiful form, the grace, the majesty, the modesty of her girlhood.
"'My pupil,' I said.
"'My master,' was the low answer.
"'I have a thing to tell you.'