"Is that your declaration?"

"I suppose you know that I have been in love with you for years. Sir Ralph knew it, I believe."

"I had no idea I was so fortunate! I wish I had known before."

"What would you have done?"

"Asked myself whether if you knew me better you might have changed your mind, and wondered whether I dared allow that to happen."

"Are you really so modest?"

"No. I shall be the most arrogant man in your life."

"There are no others of any importance . . . and never have been. I shall spend my life if necessary convincing you of that."

"So you agree to share it with me?"

"I would die rather than do anything else."

"My dearest Judith! Did I not say that you had a way with words!"

"I have told you quite frankly that I love you. I should like to hear you say that you love me."

"Have I not made it clear to you that I do?"

"I should love to hear you say it."

"I love you," he said.

"Say it again. Keep saying it. I have so long dreamed of your saying those words. I can't believe this is really true. I am awake now, am I? I'm not going to wake up in a minute to hear Lady Bodrean ringing the bell?"

He took my hand and kissed it fervently. "My dear dear Judith," he said. "You put me to shame. I don't deserve you. Don't think too highly of me. I shall disappoint you. You know my obsession with work, I shall bore you with my enthusiasms."

"Never."

"I shall be an inadequate husband. I have not your gaiety, your spontaneity, everything that makes you so attractive. I can be dull, far too serious . . ."

"One can never be too serious about the important things of life."

"I shall be moody, preoccupied. I shall neglect you for my work."

"Which I intend to share with you, including the moods and the preoccupation, so that objection is overruled."

"I am not able to express my feelings easily. I shall forget to tell you how much I love you. You alarm me. You are carried away by your enthusiasms always. You think too highly of me. You hope for perfection."

I laughed as I laid my head against him. "I can't help my feelings," I said. "I have loved you so long. I only want to be with you, to share your life, to make you happy, to make your life smooth and easy and just as you wish it to be."

"Judith," he said, "I will do my best to make you happy."

"If you love me, if you allow me to share your life, I shall be that."

He slipped his arm through mine and gripped my hand tightly.

We walked on and he talked of the future. He saw no reason why our marriage should be delayed; in fact he would like it to take place as soon as possible. We were going to be very busy with our plans. Would I mind if after the ceremony we stayed at Giza House and plunged straight into our arrangements?

Would I mind? I cared for nothing as long as I could be with him. The greatest joy which could come to me was to share his life forevermore.

There was astonishment at Rainbow Cottage when I told Dorcas and Alison my news. They were glad that I was to be married but they were a little dubious about my bridegroom. Oliver Shrimpton would have been so much more eligible in their opinion; and the rumors in St. Erno's were that the Traverses were rather odd people. And now that Sir Edward had died so mysteriously they felt that they would have preferred me not to be connected with such a mysterious affair.

"You'll be Lady Travers," said Alison.

"I hadn't thought of that."

Dorcas shook her head. "You're happy. I can see that."

"Oh Dorcas, Alison, I never thought it possible to be so happy."

"Now, now," said Dorcas, as she used to when I was a child. "You could never do things by halves."

"Surely one should not contemplate marriage 'by halves' as you say."

"No, but you hope for too much. You think everything's going to be perfect."

I laughed at her. "In this marriage," I said, "everything is."

I said nothing at Keverall Court about my engagement. It hardly seemed appropriate with Sir Ralph so ill; and the next day he died.

Keverall Court was in mourning, but I don't think anyone missed Sir Ralph as much as I did. The great joy of my engagement was overshadowed. But at least, I thought, he would have been pleased. He had been my friend, and during the weeks before his death, our friendship had meant a good deal to me, as I believed it had to him. How I wished that I could have sat in his room and told him of my engagement and all that I hoped to do in the future. I thought of him a great deal and remembered incidents from the past—when I had brought the bronze shield to him and he had first become interested in me, how he had given me a ball dress and had defended me afterwards.

Lady Bodrean put on a sorrowing countenance but it was clear that it hid a relief.

She talked to me and to Jane about the virtues of Sir Ralph; but I sensed that the lull in her hostility to me was momentary and she was promising herself that now that I had lost my champion I should be at her mercy. Little did she know the blow I was about to deliver. I was to be married to the man whom she had wanted for her daughter.

It was going to be a great shock to her to learn that her poor companion would soon be Lady Travers.

Hadrian came home. I told him the news.

"It's not officially announced yet," I warned him. "I shall wait until after the funeral."

"Tybalt's lucky," he said glumly. "I reckon he's forestalled me."

"Ah, but you wanted a woman with money."

"If you'd had a fortune, Judith, I'd have laid my heart at your feet."

"Biologically impossible," I told him.

"Well, I wish you luck. And I'm glad you're getting away from my aunt. Your life must have been hellish with her."

"It wasn't so bad. You know that I always enjoyed a fight."

That night I had a strange intimation from Sir Ralph's lawyers. They wanted me to be present at the reading of his will.

When I called at Rainbow Cottage and told Alison and Dorcas of this they behaved rather oddly.

They went out and left me in the sitting room and were gone some time. This was strange because my visit was necessarily a brief one and just as I was about to call them and tell them that I must be going, they came back.

Their faces were flushed and they looked at each other in a most embarrassed fashion, and knowing them so well I realized that each was urging the other to open a subject which they found distasteful or distressing in some way.

"Is anything wrong?" I asked.

"There is something we think you ought to know," said Dorcas.

"Yes, indeed you must be prepared."

"Prepared for what?"

Dorcas bit her lip and looked at Alison; Alison nodded.

"It's about your birth, Judith. You are our niece. Lavinia was your mother."

"Lavinia! Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because we thought it best. It was rather an awkward situation."

"It was a terrible shock to us," went on Dorcas. "Lavinia was the eldest. Father doted on her. She was so pretty. She was just like our mother . . . whereas we were like Father."

"Dear Dorcas!" I said, "do get on and tell me what this is all about."

"It was a terrible shock to us when we heard she was going to have a child."

"Which turned out to be me?"

"Yes. We smuggled Lavinia away to a cousin . . . before it was noticeable you see. We told people in the village that she had taken a situation, a post of governess. And you were born. The cousin was in London and she had several children of her own. Lavinia could look after them and keep her own baby there. It was a good arrangement. She brought you to see us, but of course she couldn't come here. We all met in Plymouth. We had such a pleasant time and then saw her off on that train."

"There was an accident," I said. "She was killed and I survived."

"And what was going to happen to you was a problem. So we said you were a cousin's child and brought you here ... to adopt you, as it were."

"Well, you are in fact my aunts! Aunt Alison! Aunt Dorcas! But why did you tell me that story about being unclaimed?"

"You were always asking questions about the distant cousins who, you thought, were your close family, so we thought it better for you to have no family at all."

"You always did what you thought best for me, I know. Who was my father? Do you know that?"

They looked at each other for a moment and I burst out: "Can it really be? It explains everything. Sir Ralph!"

Their faces told me that I had guessed correctly.

"He was my father. I'm glad. I was fond of him. He was always good to me." I went to them and hugged them. "At least I know who my parents are now."

"We thought you might be ashamed to have been born . . . out of wedlock."

"Do you know," I said, "I believe he really loved her. She must have been the one love of his life. At least she gave him the great solace he needed married to Lady Bodrean."

"Oh Judith!" they cried indulgently.

"But he has been kind to me." I thought of the way he looked at me; the amused twinkle in his eyes, the shake of his chin. He was saying to himself: This is Lavinia's daughter. How I wished that he was alive so that I could tell him how fond I had grown of him.

"Now, Judith," said Dorcas, "you must be prepared. The reason you are expected to be at the reading of the will is because he has left you something. It may well come out that you are his daughter and we wouldn't want it to come as a shock to you."