'But—Miss May—though I cannot take your advice—' he hesitated, 'this is not giving me up?'
'Never, while you let me esteem you.'
'Thank you,' he said, brightening, 'that is something to keep my head above water, even if this place were all you think it.'
'My father thinks,' said Ethel.
'I am engaged now; I cannot go back,' said Leonard. 'Thank you. Miss May.'
'Thank you for listening patiently,' said Ethel. 'Good-bye.'
'And—and,' he added earnestly, following her back to the house, 'you do not think the Coombe days cancelled?'
'If you mean my hopes of you,' said Ethel, with a swelling heart, 'as long as you do your duty—for—for the highest reason, they will only take another course, and I will try to think it the right one.'
Ethel had mentally made this interview the test of her regard for Leonard. She had failed, and so had her test; her influence had not succeeded, but it had not snapped; the boy, in all his wilfulness, had been too much for her, and she could no longer condemn and throw him off!
Oh! why will not the rights and wrongs of this world be more clearly divided!