sing colour.

'Yes,' he continued, 'sometimes I can't help feeling uneasy about him.
You know, he seems not made for a town life exactly: he gets very queer
over it sometimes, I think. Perhaps he'll be better when he's married to
Adelaide.'

A half-impatient feeling arose in her, like that which possesses a
sick person when he hears a recently-struck hour struck again by a slow
clock. She had lived further on.

'Everything depends upon whether he loves her,' she said tremulously.

'He used to--he doesn't show it so much now; but that's because he's
older. You see, it was several years ago they first walked together as
young man and young woman. She's altered too from what she was when he
first courted her.'

'How, sir?'

'O, she's more sensible by half. When he used to write to her she'd
creep up the lane and look back over her shoulder, and slide out the
letter, and read a word and stand in thought looking at the hills and
seeing none. Then the cuckoo would cry--away the letter would slip, and
she'd start wi' fright at the mere bird, and have a red skin before the
quickest man among ye could say, "Blood rush up."'

He came forward with the money and dropped it into her hand. His
thoughts were still with Edward, and he absently took her little fingers
in his as he said, earnestly and ingenuously--

''Tis so seldom I get a gentlewoman to speak to that I can't help
speaking to you, Miss Graye, on my fears for Edward; I sometimes am
afraid that he'll never get on--that he'll die poor and despised under
the worst mental conditions, a keen sense of having been passed in the
race by men whose brains are nothing to his own, all through his seeing
too far into things--being discontented with make-shifts--thinking o'
perfection in things, and then sickened that there's no such thing as
perfection. I shan't be sorry to see him marry, since it may settle him
down and do him good.... Ay, we'll hope for the best.'

He let go her hand and accompanied her to the door saying, 'If you
should care to walk this way and talk to an old man once now and then,
it will be a great delight to him, Miss Graye. Good-evening to ye.... Ah
look! a thunderstorm is brewing--be quick home. Or shall I step up with
you?'

'No, thank you, Mr. Springrove. Good evening,' she said in a low voice,
and hurried away. One thought still possessed her; Edward had trifled
with her love.

4. FIVE TO SIX P.M.

She followed the road into a bower of tree