lew up
the dust before him and stirred the parched leafage of the valley. He
knocked at the door, of which the woodwork was all peeled and blistered
by the sun. Catherine herself opened it.

'This is kind--this is like yourself!' she said, after a first stare of
amazement, when he had explained himself. 'He is in there, much better.'

Robert looked up, stupefied, as Hugh Flaxman entered. But he sprang up
with his old brightness.

'Well, this _is_ friendship! What on earth brings you here, old fellow?
Why aren't you in the stubbles celebrating St. Partridge?'

Hugh Flaxman said what he had to say very shortly, but so as to make
Robert's eyes gleam, and to bring his thin hand with a sort of caressing
touch upon Flaxman's shoulder.

'I shan't try to thank you--Catherine can if she likes. How relieved she
will be about that bothering journey of ours! However, I am really ever
so much better. It was very sharp while it lasted; and the doctor no
great shakes. But there never was such a woman as my wife; she pulled me
through! And now then, sir, just kindly confess yourself a little more
plainly. What brought you and my sisters-in-law together? You need not
try and persuade _me_ that Long Whindale is the natural gate of the
Lakes, or the route intended by Heaven from London to Scotland, though I
have no doubt you tried that little fiction on them.'

Hugh Flaxman laughed, and sat down very deliberately.

'I am glad to see that illness has not robbed you of that perspicacity
for which you are so remarkable, Elsmere. Well, the day before yesterday
I asked your sister Rose to marry me. She----'

'Go on, man,' cried Robert, exasperated by his pause.

'I don't know how to put it,' said Flaxman calmly. 'For six months we
are to be rather more than friends, and a good deal less than _fiances_.
I am to be allowed to write to her. You may imagine how seductive it is
to one of the worst and laziest letter-writers in the three kingdoms
that his fortunes in love should be made to depend on his
correspondence. I may scold her _if_ she gives me occasion. And in six
months, as one says to a publisher, "the agreement will be open to
revision."'

Robert stared.

'And you are not engaged?'

'Not as I understand it,' replied Flaxman. 'Decidedly not!' he added
with energy, remembering that very platonic farewell.

Robert sat with his hands on his knees, ruminating.

'A fantastic thing, the modern young woman! Still I think I can