"As a housekeeper."
"Oh dear!" cried Alice in dismay. "I don't know very much about housekeeping. People would not think me old enough."
"And as a wife."
She did not understand him. He was rising from his seat to approach her, a smile on his face. Alice sat looking at him with parted lips.
"As my wife, Alice," he said, bending low. "Oh, my dear, surely our foolish estrangement may end! I have been wishing it for some time past. I am tired of chambers, and want to set up a home for myself. I want a wife in it. Alice, if you will be that wife, well: otherwise I shall probably remain as I am for ever."
Ah, there could be no longer any doubt: he was in earnest. His tender tones, his beseeching eyes, the warm clasp of his hands, told her all the happy truth—his love was her own still. She burst into tears of emotion, and William Stane kissed them away.
"You don't despise me because I have been a governess?" she sobbed.
"My darling, I only love you the better for it. And shall prize you more."
He sat down by her side and quietly told her all. That for a considerable period after their parting, he had steeled his heart against her, and done his best to drive her from it. He thought he had succeeded. He believed he should have succeeded but for meeting her again at Mrs. Preen's. That showed him that she was just as dear to him as ever. Still he strove against his love; but he continued his visits to the Preens, who were old friends of his and each time, that he chanced to see Alice, served to convince him more and more that he could not part with her. He was about to tell his father that he had made up his mind to marry Miss Raynor, when Sir Philip died, and then he did not speak to Alice quite immediately. All this he explained to her.
"And but for your coming into this house, Alice, and my opportunities of seeing you in it, we should in all human probability have remained estranged throughout life. So, you see that I would not have had you not become a governess for the world."