'We will go back presently. Ethel, I want to speak to you—I must speak to you; this sort of thing cannot go on any longer.'
'What do you mean?' she asked, turning very pale, but not looking at him.
'That we cannot go on any longer avoiding each other like this. You have avoided me very often lately—have you not, Ethel?' speaking very gently.
'I do not know; you are so changed—you are not like yourself, Richard,' she faltered.
'How can I be like myself?' he answered, with a sudden passion in his voice that made her tremble; 'how am I to forget that I am a poor curate, and you your father's heiress; that I have fifties where you have thousands? Oh, Ethel, if you were only poor,' his tone sinking into pathos.
'What have riches or poverty to do with it?' she asked, still averting her face from him.
'Do you not see? Can you not understand?' he returned, eagerly. 'If you were poor, would it not make my wooing easier? I have loved you how long, Ethel? Is it ten or eleven years? I was a boy of fourteen when I loved you first, and I have never swerved from my allegiance.'
'Never!' in a low voice.
'Never! When you called me Cœur-de-Lion, I swore then, lad as I was, that I would one day win my Berengaria. You have been the dearest thing in life to me, ever since I first saw you; and now that I should lose my courage over these pitiful riches! Oh, Ethel, it is hard—hard, just when a little hope was dawning on me that one day you might be able to return my affection. Was I wrong in that belief?' trying to obtain a glimpse of the face now shielded by her hands.
'Whatever I may feel, I know we are equals,' she returned evasively.