are always to be allowed to go through the world taking thought of other
people and allowing no one to take thought for you?'

He held it out to her.

'No, no! This is absurd, Mr. Elsmere. You are not strong yet. And I have
often told you that nothing hurts me.'

He hung it deliberately over his arm. 'Very well, then, there it stays!'

And they hurried on again, she biting her lip and on the point of
laughter.

'Mr. Elsmere, be sensible!' she said presently, her look changing to one
of real distress. 'I should never forgive myself if you got a chill
after your illness!'

'You will not be called upon,' he said in the most matter-of-fact tone.
'Men's coats are made to keep out weather,' and he pointed to his own,
closely buttoned up. 'Your dress--I can't help being disrespectful under
the circumstances--will be wet through in ten minutes.'

Another silence. Then he overtook her.

'Please, Miss Leyburn,' he said, stopping her.

There was an instant's mute contest between them. The rain splashed on
the umbrellas. She could not help it, she broke down into the merriest,
most musical laugh of a child that can hardly stop itself, and he
joined.

'Mr. Elsmere, you are ridiculous!'

But she submitted. He put the mackintosh round her, thinking, bold man,
as she turned her rosy rain-dewed face to him, of Wordsworth's 'Louisa,'
and the poet's cry of longing.

And yet he was not so bold either. Even at this moment of exhilaration
he was conscious of a bar that checked and arrested. Something--what was
it?--drew invisible lines of defence about her. A sort of divine fear of
her mingled with his rising passion. Let him not risk too much too soon.

They walked on briskly, and were soon on the Whindale side of the pass.
To the left of them the great hollow of High Fell unfolded, storm-beaten
and dark, the river issuing from the heart of it like an angry voice.

'What a change!' he said, coming up with her as the path widened. 'How
impossible that it should have been only yesterday afternoon I was
lounging up here in the heat, by the pool where the stream rises,
watching the white butterflies on the turf, and reading "Laodamia"!'

'"Laodamia"!' she said, half sighing as she caught the name. 'Is it one
of those you like best?'

'Yes,' he said, bending forward that he might see her in spite of the
umbrella. 'How superb it is--the roll, the majesty of it; the severe
chastened beauty of the main feeling, the individual li