"Everything else?" she echoed. "Is there anything else but this?"
"Nothing that counts, to me. You for my own, and this good world to live in—I stand bareheaded before it all. But yet, I told you once that I had a purpose to accomplish; a purpose now very near completion. In a few months I meant to leave Ffrenchwood."
Emily gave a faint cry.
"Yes, for my work would have been done. Then I fell in love and upset everything. When I tell Mr. Ffrench that I want you, I will have to leave at once."
"Why? You said—"
"How brave are you, Emily?" he asked. "I said your uncle could not question my name or birth, but I did not say he would want to give you to me. Nor will he; unless I am mistaken. Are you going to be brave enough to come to me, knowing he has no right to complain, since you and I together have given him Dick?"
"He does not know you; how can you tell he does not like you?" she urged.
"Do you think he likes 'Darling' Lestrange of the race course?"
The sudden keen demand disconcerted her.
"I hear a little down there," he added. "I have not been fortunate with your kinsman. No, it is for you to say whether Ethan Ffrench's unjust caprice is a bar between us. To me it is none."