te so confident here. But she went on.

She had not gone very far before she saw him; under the same oak where
they had sat together; lying on his elbow on the turf and reading.
Dolly started, but then advanced slowly, after that one minute's check
and pause. He was reading; he did not see her, and he did not hear her
light footstep coming up the bank; until her figure threw a shadow
which reached him. Then he looked up and sprang up; and perhaps
divining it, met Dolly's hesitation, for, taking her hands he placed
her on the bank beside his open book; which book, Dolly saw, was his
Bible. But her shyness had all come back. The impression made by the
thought of a person, when you do not see him, is something quite
different from the living and breathing flesh and blood personality.
Mr. Shubrick, on the other hand, was in a widely different mood; which
Dolly knew, I suppose, though she could not see.

"This is unlooked-for happiness," said he, throwing himself down on the
bank beside her. "What have you done with Mr. Copley?"

"Nothing. He did not want me. He asked me what I had done with Mr.
Shubrick? I think you have spoiled him." Dolly spoke without looking at
her companion, be it understood, and her breath came a little short.

"And what are you going to do with Mr. Shubrick?" her companion said,
not in the tone of a doubtful man, lying there on the bank and watching
her.

But Dolly found no words. She could not say anything, well though she
recognised Mr. Shubrick's right to have his answer. Her eyes were
absolutely cast down; the colour on her cheek varied a little, yet not
with the overwhelming flushes of the other day. Dolly was struggling
with the sense of duty, the necessity for action, and yet she could not
act. She had come to the scene of action, indeed, and there her bravery
failed her; and she sat with those delicate lights coming and going on
her cheek, and the brown eyes hidden behind the sweep of the lowered
eyelashes; most like a shy child. Mr. Shubrick could have smiled, but
he kept back the smile.

"You know," he said in calm, matter-of-fact tones, that met Dolly's
sense of business, "my action must wait upon your decision. If you do
not let me stay, I must go, and that at once. What do you want me to
do?"

"I do not want you to go," Dolly breathed softly.

Silently Mr. Shubrick held out his hand. As silently, though frankly,
Dolly put hers into it. Still she did not look at him. And he
reco