"'Captain Frint, I am very sorry that this should have happened. I quite thought that you had too much respect for me to act in the way you have done--even though you cared for me. I suppose that what you suggest is best, if you feel that your power of self-control is so weak that you cannot see without insulting the girl you profess to love. This being so, it is certainly imperative that you should go; but you must remember that if you suddenly give up calling, and act in the way proposed, people will probably talk. I can hardly think that you are so weak as, in the excitement of the moment, you fancy, and therefore if you will promise faithfully never to forget yourself in this way again, I will forgive you this once, though mind, never again. Come,' I continued, holding out my hand, 'let us be friends--mind, friends and nothing more. You must get over this silly fancy. There are plenty of nicer girls than I am, unmarried and waiting for you. To one of these you can express all those pretty sentiments without a prick of conscience.'
"'Thank you,' he said, 'I will promise not to forget, but can never hope to follow your advice. Do you think it would be possible to change so easily? You do not understand, and perhaps it is better you should not, how deeply I feel; but your forgiveness is the more generous, as this very depth of feeling is my only possible excuse.'
"We sat without speaking for a few minutes, and then he suggested that we had better go and look for our companions.
"After wandering about for some little time we found them comfortably reclining against a buttress on one of the towers. As we went up the winding steps we could hear them talking about the view. Amy, I thought, had evidently less occasion for a chaperon than had her qualified protector; but I was more doubtful about this point after having seen her face, which was flushed and showed signs of an unusual, though suppressed, excitement. The Major has proposed, I thought.
"I had no opportunity of finding out if this surmise were correct till I went up to our room that evening; and even then Amy, instead of answering my question, at first persisted in hearing what Captain Frint had been saying to me.