“Give you time! How could I give you time, and he here on the spot? There’s been too much time to my thinking. When young folk are agreeable and the old folk are agreeable too, there can’t be too little time. Come along over and we’ll talk of it in the kitchen while they talks in the parlour. He’d a’ been in there among you all only for Mrs. Prime. She is so dour like for a young man to have to say anything before her, of the likes of that. That’s why I took him into our place.”
They overtook Rachel at the house door and they all went through together into the great kitchen. “Oh, Rachel!” said Mrs. Ray. “Oh, dear!”
“What is it, mamma?” said Rachel. Then looking into her mother’s face, she guessed the truth. “Mamma,” she said, “he’s here! Mr. Rowan is here!” And she took hold of her mother’s arm, as though to support herself.
“And that’s just the truth,” said Mrs. Sturt, triumphantly. “He’s through there in the little parlour, and you must just go to him, my dear, and hear what he’s got to say to you.”
“Oh, mamma!” said Rachel.
“I suppose you must do what she tells you,” said Mrs. Ray.
“Of course she must,” said Mrs. Sturt.
“Mamma, you must go to him,” said Rachel.
“That won’t do at all,” said Mrs. Sturt.
“And why has he come here?” said Rachel.
“Ah! I wonder why,” said Mrs. Sturt. “I wonder why any young man should come on such an errand! But it won’t do to leave him there standing in my parlour by himself, so do you come along with me.”
So saying Mrs. Sturt took Rachel by the arm to lead her away. Mrs. Ray in this great emergency was perfectly helpless. She could simply look at her daughter with imploring, loving eyes, and stand quivering in doubt against the dresser. Mrs. Sturt had very decided views on the matter. She had put Luke Rowan into the parlour with a promise that she would bring Rachel to him there, and she was not going to break her word through any mock delicacy. The two young people liked one another, and they should have this opportunity of saying so in each other’s hearing. So she took Rachel by the arm, and opening the door of the parlour led her into the room. “Mr. Rowan,” she said, “when you and Miss Rachel have had your say out, you’ll find me and her mamma in the kitchen.” Then she closed the door and left them alone.
Rachel, when first summoned out of the cottage, had felt at once that Mrs. Sturt’s visit must have reference to Luke Rowan. Indeed everything with her in her present moods had some reference to him—some reference though it might be ever so remote. But now before she had time to form a thought, she was told that he was there in the same house with her, and that she was taken to him in order that she might hear his words and speak her own. It was very sudden; and for the space of a few moments she would have fled away from Mrs. Sturt’s kitchen had such flight been possible. Since Rowan had gone from her there had been times in which she would have fled to him, in which she would have journeyed alone any distance so that she might tell him of her love, and ask whether she had got any right to hope for his. But all that seemed to be changed. Though her mother was there with her and her friend, she feared that this seeking of her lover was hardly maidenly. Should he not have come to her—every foot of the way to her feet, and there have spoken if he had aught to say, before she had been called on to make any sign? Would he like her for thus going to him? But then she had no chance of escape. She found herself in Mrs. Sturt’s kitchen under her mother’s sanction, before she had been able to form any purpose; and then an idea did come to her, even at that moment, that poor Luke would have had a hard task of it in her sister’s presence. When she was first told that he was there in the farmhouse parlour, her courage left her and she dreaded the encounter; but she was able to collect her thoughts as she passed out of the kitchen, and across the passage, and when she followed Mrs. Sturt into the room she had again acquired the power to carry herself as a woman having a soul of her own.
“Rachel!” Rowan said, stepping up to her and tendering his hand to her. “I have come to answer your letter in person.”
“I knew,” she said, “when I wrote it, that my letter did not deserve any answer. I did not expect an answer.”
“But am I wrong now to bring you one in person? I have thought so much of seeing you again! Will you not say a word of welcome to me?”
“I am glad to see you, Mr. Rowan.”
“Mr. Rowan! Nay; if it is to be Mr. Rowan I may as well go back to Baslehurst. It has come to that, that it must be Luke now, or there must be no naming of names between us. You chided me once when I called you Rachel.”
“You called me so once, sir, when I should have chided you and did not. I remember it well. You were very wrong, and I was very foolish.”
“But I may call you
