“Yes, with pleasure, but it wasn't exactly to tell that I had proposed to Maggie that I came here to-night; there is something more than that. You know that fellow she calls Charlie? I don't know his other name.”
“Stracey?”
“I dare say. I mean the man you said you hated more than any man alive; I hate him, too.”
“You don't mean to say she is still thinking of that fellow. Has he come back?”
“He was at the Manor House all day yesterday.”
“If she marries that fellow I'll never speak to her again, it will be dead cuts.”
“It is only natural that I should love Maggie. You remember the first day I came down to the Manor House? How young I was then—how young we all were; there are no days like the old days! There is a beautiful poem by Wordsworth; I only remember one line now—
“'When every day was long
As twenty days are now'—
Do you remember the poem?” Willy did not answer, and noticing that his eyes were blinking, Frank hastily returned to more recent events.” I wrote to her this afternoon telling her how much I loved her, and I said that I would call about nine in the evening at the Manor House, and that I hoped to find her in the drawing-room where we could talk without being disturbed. However, I was too excited, and could not hold out till nine; I thought I had better hear my fate at once, and as I was walking across the field—you know, at the back of Mrs. Heald's—I met her half way. She had a letter in her hand, which she said she was going to leave at Mrs. Heald's for me—She admitted that the letter was in point of fact a refusal, and when I questioned her she admitted that she was obliged to refuse me because she had half promised Charlie. We went for a walk on the beach; we sat on the beach and watched the sunset, and I told her all. I spoke to her about the past, how we had grown up together—how we had been, as it were, from the first fated for each other; for you must admit, Willy, that it is very curious—I don't know if you ever think of it, but I do—how we have met again even when the chances of life seemed to have put us for ever apart. “Here a slight sound warned Frank that the present moment was one as equally unfitted for psychological analysis as for poetry, and he hurried to his story, hoping that the incident of the lock would secure him attention. “Willy, I think I convinced her that I liked her better than that other fellow. We were standing by the lock—Willy, I really do think you might listen.”
“My dear fellow, I am listening. You were both looking at the sunset.”