voice seemed to come through his thought, as though she had continued speaking whilst he had paused:

‘We have all our own secrets. I have had mine; and I doubt not that thou hast had, may still have, thine own. Stephen hath hers! May I speak to thee of her?’

‘I shall be proud! Oh! madam, I thank you with all my heart for your sweet kindness to her. I cannot say what I feel; for she has always been very dear to me!’ In the pause before she spoke again the beating of his own heart seemed to re-echo the quick sounds of Stephen’s galloping horse. He was surprised at the method of her speech when it did come; for she forgot her Quaker idiom, and spoke in the phrasing of her youth:

‘Do you love her still?’