d her up the square. She had to remind him that his
way to town lay in the other direction.

"Of course--how stupid of me!" he said, with a little loud laugh. "I'm so
used to going the other way with you--of course; it's the other way to
the bus. Will you come along with me? I am so awfully sorry it's happened
like this...."

They took the street to the bus terminus.

This time Elsie bore no signs of having gone through interior struggles.
If she detected anything unusual in his manner she made no comment, and
he, seeing her calm, began to talk less recklessly through silences. By
the time they reached the bus terminus, nobody, seeing the pallid-faced
man without an overcoat and the large ample-skirted girl at his side,
would have supposed that one of them was ready to sink on his knees for
thankfulness that he had, as he believed, saved the other from a wildly
unthinkable danger.

They mounted to the top of the bus, Oleron protesting that he should not
miss his overcoat, and that he found the day, if anything, rather
oppressively hot. They sat down on a front seat.

Now that this meeting was forced upon him, he had something else to say
that would make demands upon his tact. It had been on his mind for some
time, and was, indeed, peculiarly difficult to put. He revolved it for
some minutes, and then, remembering the success of his story of a sudden
call to town, cut the knot of his difficulty with another lie.

"I'm thinking of going away for a little while, Elsie," he said.

She merely said, "Oh?"

"Somewhere for a change. I need a change. I think I shall go to-morrow,
or the day after. Yes, to-morrow, I think."

"Yes," she replied.

"I don't quite know how long I shall be," he continued. "I shall have to
let you know when I am back."

"Yes, let me know," she replied in an even tone.

The tone was, for her, suspiciously even. He was a little uneasy.

"You don't ask me where I'm going," he said, with a little cumbrous
effort to rally her.

She was looking straight before her, past the bus-driver.

"I know," she said.

He was startled. "How, you know?"

"You're not going anywhere," she replied.

He found not a word to say. It was a minute or so before she continued,
in the same controlled voice she had employed from the start.

"You're not going anywhere. You weren't going out this morning. You only
came out because I appeared; don't behave as if we were strangers, Paul."

A flush of pink had mo