water and
weed, and the shaggy wildness which hung about his appearance at this
fine and correct time of day lent an impracticability to the look of him.

'You blame me--you repent your courses--you repent that you ever, ever
owned anything to me!'

'No, Nicholas, I do not repent that,' she returned gently, though with
firmness. 'But I think that you ought not to have got that licence
without asking me first; and I also think that you ought to have known
how it would be if you lived on here in your present position, and made
no effort to better it. I can bear whatever comes, for social ruin is
not personal ruin or even personal disgrace. But as a sensible,
new-risen poet says, whom I have been reading this morning:-

The world and its ways have a certain worth:
And to press a point while these oppose
Were simple policy. Better wait.

As soon as you had got my promise, Nic, you should have gone away--yes--and
made a name, and come back to claim me. That was my silly girlish dream
about my hero.'

'Perhaps I can do as much yet! And would you have indeed liked better to
live away from me for family reasons, than to run a risk in seeing me for
affection's sake? O what a cold heart it has grown! If I had been a
prince, and you a dairymaid, I'd have stood by you in the face of the
world!'

She shook her head. 'Ah--you don't know what society is--you don't
know.'

'Perhaps not. Who was that strange gentleman of about seven-and-twenty I
saw at Mr. Bellston's christening feast?'

'Oh--that was his nephew James. Now he is a man who has seen an unusual
extent of the world for his age. He is a great traveller, you know.'

'Indeed.'

'In fact an explorer. He is very entertaining.'

'No doubt.'

Nicholas received no shock of jealousy from her announcement. He knew
her so well that he could see she was not in the least in love with
Bellston. But he asked if Bellston were going to continue his
explorations.

'Not if he settles in life. Otherwise he will, I suppose.'

'Perhaps I could be a great explorer, too, if I tried.'

'You could, I am sure.'

They sat apart, and not together; each looking afar off at vague objects,
and not in each other's eyes. Thus the sad autumn afternoon waned, while
the waterfall hissed sarcastically of the inevitableness of the
unpleasant. Very different this from the time when they had first met
there.

The nook was most picturesque; but it looked horridly