But I am grateful to you for letting
me explain. I should not have liked you to go on thinking that I
played practical jokes on my friends. That is all I have to say, I
think. It was kind of you to listen. Good-by, Miss Derrick."

I got up.

"Are you going?"

"Why not?"

"Please sit down again."

"But you wish to be alone--"

"Please sit down!"

There was a flush on the fair cheek turned toward me, and the chin was
tilted higher.

I sat down.

To westward the sky had changed to the hue of a bruised cherry. The
sun had sunk below the horizon, and the sea looked cold and leaden.
The blackbird had long since gone to bed.

"I am glad you told me, Mr. Garnet."

She dipped her brush in the water.

"Because I don't like to think badly of--people."

She bent her head over her painting.

"Though I still think you behaved very wrongly. And I am afraid my
father will never forgive you for what you did."

Her father! As if he counted!

"But you do?" I said eagerly.

"I think you are less to blame than I thought you were at first."

"No more than that?"

"You can't expect to escape all consequences. You did a very stupid
thing."

"Consider the temptation."

The sky was a dull gray now. It was growing dusk. The grass on which I
sat was wet with dew.

I stood up.

"Isn't it getting a little dark for painting?" I said. "Are you sure
you won't catch cold? It's very damp."

"Perhaps it is. And it is late, too."

She shut her paint box and emptied the little mug on the grass.

"You will let me carry your things?" I said.

I think she hesitated, but only for a moment. I possessed myself of
the camp stool, and we started on our homeward journey. We were both
silent. The spell of the quiet summer evening was on us.

"'And all the air a solemn stillness holds,'" she said softly. "I love
this cliff, Mr. Garnet. It's the most soothing place in the world."

"I have found it so this evening."

She glanced at me quickly.

"You're not looking well," she said. "Are you sure you are not
overworking yourself?"

"No, it's not that."

Somehow we had stopped, as if by agreement, and were facing each
other. There was a look in her eyes I had never seen there before.
The twilight hung like a curtain between us and the world. We were
alone together in a world of our own.

"It is because I had displeased you," I said.

She laughed nervously.

"I have loved you ever since I first saw you," I said doggedly.