iends. If your
other--friend--has left you altogether, then--well, time makes a great
difference in those things. I think after we'd been together a
little--Oh, Maggie, do!" he broke off just like a boy. "Do! We suit
each other so well that we MUST be happy, and then Grace likes you--she
likes you very much. She does indeed."

"Let's leave Grace out of this," Maggie said firmly. "It's between you
and me, Paul. It's nobody else's affair. What about the other two
objections? I don't believe in your faith at all, and I'm unpunctual
and forgetful, and break things."

Strangely she was wanting him urgently now to reassure her. She
realised that if now he withdrew she would be faced with a loneliness
more terrible than anything that she had known since Martin had left
her. The warm pressure of his hand about hers reassured her.

"Maggie dear," he said softly, "I love you better because you're young
and unformed. I can help you, dear, and you can help me, of course; I'm
a dreadful old buffer in many ways. I'm forty, you know, and you're
such a child. How old are you, Maggie?"

"Twenty," she said.

"Twenty! Fancy! And you can like an old parson--well, well ... If you
care for me nothing else matters. God will see to the rest."

"I don't like leaving things to other people," Maggie said slowly. "Now
I suppose I've shocked you. But there you are; I shall always be
shocking you."

"Nothing that you can say will shock me," he answered firmly. "Do you
know that that's part of the charm you have for me, you dear little
wild thing? If you will come and live with me perhaps you will see how
God works, how mysterious are His ways, and what He means to do for
you--"

Maggie shivered: "Oh, now you're talking like Aunt Anne. I don't want
to feel that I'm something that some one can do what he likes with. I'm
not."

"No. I know you're not," Paul answered eagerly. "You're very
independent. I admire that in you--and so does Grace--"

"Would Grace like us to marry?" asked Maggie.

"It's the desire of her heart," said Paul.

"But how can you want to marry me when you know I don't love you?"

"Love's a strange thing. Companionship can make great changes. You like
me. That is enough for the present. I can be patient. I'm not an
impetuous man."

He was certainly not. He was just a large warm comfortable creature
far, far from the terrified and strangely travelled soul of Martin ...
Insensibly, hardly realising what she did, Magg