'That reminds me,' she said; 'I didn't know you had a second name—till I got that letter.'
'I had almost forgotten it myself, till I answered a certain other letter. I didn't know till then that you had a second name. Your "Florence" called out my "Radcliffe"—which sounds fiery, doesn't it? I always felt that the name over-weighted me. I got it from my mother.'
'And your first—Harvey?'
'My first I got from a fine old doctor, about whom I'll tell you some day—Alma.'
'I named your name. I didn't address you by it.'
'But you will?'
'Let us talk seriously.—Could you live far away from London, in some place that people know nothing about?'
'With you, indeed I could, and be glad enough if I never saw London again.'
An exaltation possessed Alma; her eyes grew very bright, gazing as if at a mental picture, and her hands trembled as she continued to speak.'
'I don't mean that we are to go and be hermits in a wilderness. Our friends must visit us—our real friends, no one else; just the people we really care about, and those won't be many. If I give up a public career—as of course I shall—there's no need to give up music. I can go on with it in a better spirit, for pure love of it, without any wish for making money and reputation. You don't think this a mere dream?'