mean to go in,
and she paused an instant on the threshold, looked at him gravely, and
nodded before she entered. Again he bent his head, and said nothing. She
left him standing there, and went straight to her room.

Then she sat down before a little table on which she wrote her letters,
near the window, and she tried to think. But it was not easy, and
everything was terribly confused. She rested her elbows upon the small
desk and pressed her fingers to her eyes, as though to drive away the
sight that would come back. Then she dropped her hands suddenly and
opened her eyes wide, and stared at the wall-paper before her. And it
came back very vividly between her and the white plaster, and she heard
his voice again--but she was smiling now.

She started violently, for she felt two hands laid unexpectedly upon her
shoulders, and some one kissed her hair. She had not heard her mother's
footstep, nor the opening and shutting of the door, nor anything but
Brook Johnstone's voice.

"What is it, my darling?" asked the elder woman, bending down over her
daughter's shoulder. "Has anything happened?"

Clare hesitated a moment, and then spoke, for the habit of her
confidence was strong. "He has asked me to marry him, mother--"

In her turn Mrs. Bowring started, and then rested one hand on the table.

"You? You?" she repeated, in a low and troubled voice. "You marry Adam
Johnstone's son?"

"No, mother--never," answered the young girl.

"Thank God!"

And Mrs. Bowring sank into a chair, shivering as though she were cold.

CHAPTER XII

Brook felt in his pocket mechanically for his pipe, as a man who smokes
generally takes to something of the sort at great moments in his life,
from sheer habit. He went through the operation of filling and lighting
with great precision, almost unconscious of what he was doing, and
presently he found himself smoking and sitting on the wall just where
Clare had leaned against it during their interview. In three minutes his
pipe had gone out, but he was not aware of the fact, and sat quite still
in his place, staring into the shrubbery which grew at the back of the
terrace.

He was conscious that he had talked and acted wildly, and quite unlike
the self with which he had been long acquainted; and the consciousness
was anything but pleasant. He wondered where Clare was, and what she
might be thinking of him at that moment. But as he thought of her his
former mood returned, and he felt th