“Yes,” I argued; “the man who has for years gained huge profits from the public—succeeded in hoodwinking them with some patent medicine, scented soap, or other commodity out of which he has made eighty per cent, profit—is put forward as the type of the successful business man. There is really no morality in trade in these days.”
“And this Mr Yelverton is actually curate of Duddington,” she said pensively. “Strange that he should go and bury himself down there, isn’t it?”
“He hasn’t been well,” I said. “Work in the slums has upset his health. He’s a good fellow. Not one of those who go in for the Church as an easy means of obtaining five or six hundred a year and a snug parsonage, but an earnest, devout man whose sole object is to do good among his fellow-creatures. Would that there were more of his sort about.”
Thus we chatted on. It seemed as though she knew more of Yelverton than she would admit, and that she had learned with surprise of his whereabouts.
Only once again, when she rose to go, I spoke to her of the great sorrow at my heart, and then alone with her in the silence of my room I implored her to reciprocate my love.
She stood motionless, allowing her hand to rest in mine, while I reiterated my declaration of affection. But when I had finished she withdrew her hand firmly, and with a negative gesture burst into tears.
I saw how agitated she was, how she trembled when her white hands came into contact with mine.
She tried to escape me, but I would not release her. Loving her as I did, I was determined that she should not slip away from me. Surely, I urged, I, her oldest friend, had a right to her rather than a stranger whom she had only known a few brief weeks. She was unjust to me.
Suddenly, while I was imploring earnestly that she would hesitate before thus casting my love aside, the clock of St. Martin’s struck the half-hour.
She glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece, exclaiming—