'Could not the telescope be brought to my house?'

Swithin shook his head.

'Perhaps you did not observe its real size,--that it was fixed to a
frame-work? I could not afford to buy an equatorial, and I have
been obliged to rig up an apparatus of my own devising, so as to
make it in some measure answer the purpose of an equatorial. It
COULD be moved, but I would rather not touch it.'

'Well, I'll go to the telescope,' she went on, with an emphasis that
was not wholly playful. 'You are the most ungallant youth I ever
met with; but I suppose I must set that down to science. Yes, I'll
go to the tower at nine every night.'

'And alone? I should prefer to keep my pursuits there unknown.'

'And alone,' she answered, quite overborne by his inflexibility.

'You will not miss the morning observation, if it should be
necessary?'

'I have given my word.'

'And I give mine. I suppose I ought not to have been so exacting!'
He spoke with that sudden emotional sense of his own insignificance
which made these alternations of mood possible. 'I will go
anywhere--do anything for you--this moment--to-morrow or at any
time. But you must return with me to the tower, and let me show you