Thank you to everyone who said such lovely things about it so far

She knocked on the door before she really knew what she was doing. She could hear him as he called

"I'm coming." He opened the door and gasped as he saw who it was. It was quite comical. He was covered in white paint and this, combined with the look on his face made her want to laugh.

"What are you doing here? I, I mean, what can I do for you Miss Baxter?"

"Well, I, - I need to talk to you, could, could I come in?"

"If you must." His icy tone shocked her; she had never seen him so cold.

When she entered the living room she saw it had changed since she had last been there. Mr Molesley had painted the walls with leaves, but he seemed to be erasing it.

"These are nice."

"Thank you. It was a surprise for you. Phyllis means foliage in some language or another. I wanted you to come into your new home and see, but I guess that's not going to happen now." He let out a small laugh to which she smiled.

"I've been talking to Mr Barrow"

"Yes, you two did always get along very well"

"He said some things. He said I should tell you the truth. About Coyle. He said if that's why I'm breaking it off, I'm ridiculous. He said you would forgive me. So I am going to tell you the truth. But I love you. So if you decide you would like to get married, I would love to get married on Saturday."

"OK."

"Well, you know what happened, because that's what Thomas knew, but even he didn't know everything. You may have g-guessed, but if not, I'll spell it out for you. Coyle and I were together. Physically. And we were as c-c-careful as we could be, but it wasn't long before I got pregnant. He s-said he would marry me. He s-said we would run away from servitude. I just had to do two things. First steal the jewels. Second, get r-r-rid of it. And of course, I did exactly as he s-said. I hate it, what I did, every day. I hate that I wait on her ladyship, who lost a baby in 1914, and Lady Edith, who would rather live in scandal than let someone else raise Miss Marigold. And I-I-I got rid of mine."

She was crying by this time. It hurt him, not just her revelations, but the way he could do nothing about them. He reached out and tucked her into his arms as she sobbed into his shoulder. It took her a little while to recover, but when she did, she looked up at him. Her eyes were wide, drowning, begging to be rescued, but even if she hadn't looked desperate, even if she hadn't just broken down in his arms, he still would've got down on one knee.