'Yes, my father knows—and Aunt Milly. I think they all guessed my secret long ago—all but you,' in a tenderly reproachful voice; 'why should they not know? I am not ashamed of it,' continued the young man, a little loftily.
Somehow they had changed characters. It was Ethel who was timid now.
'But—but—they could not have approved,' she faltered at last.
'Why should they not approve? My father loves you as a daughter—they all do; they would take you into their hearts, and you would never be lonely again. Oh, Ethel, is there no hope? Do you mean that you cannot love me?'
'I have always loved you; but we are too young, yes, that is it, we are too young—too much of an age. If I marry, I must look up to my husband. Indeed, indeed, we are too young, Richard!'
'I am, you mean;' how calm he was growing; why his very voice was under his control now. 'Listen to me, dear: I am only six months older than you, but in a love like mine age does not count; it is no boyish lover you are dismissing, Ethel; I am older in everything than you; I should not be afraid to take care of you.'
No, he was not afraid; as she looked up into that handsome resolute face, and read there the earnestness of his words, Ethel's eyes dropped before that clear, dominant glance as they had never done before. It was she that was afraid now—afraid of this young lover, so grave, so strong, so self-controlled; this was not her old favourite, this new, quiet-spoken Richard. She would fain have kept them both, but it must not be.
'May I speak to your father?' he pleaded. 'At least you will be frank with me; I have little to offer, I know—a hard-working curate's home, and that not yet.'
'Hush! I will not have this from you,' and for a moment Ethel's true woman's soul gleamed in her eyes; 'if you were penniless it would make no difference; I would give up anything, everything for the man I loved. For shame, Richard, when you know I loathe the very name of riches.'
'Yes, I know your great soul, Ethel; it is this that I love even more than your beauty, and I must not tell you what I think of that; it is not because I am poor and unambitious that you refuse me?'