ature, his skill in the management of meters, and his
ancient west-country blood. But the feeling that underlay all these
feelings and puzzled him profoundly and kept him silent was the
certainty that he loved Katharine as sincerely as he had it in him to
love any one. And yet she could speak to him like that! In a sort of
bewilderment he lost all desire to speak, and would quite readily have
taken up some different topic of conversation if Katharine had started
one. This, however, she did not do.

He glanced at her, in case her expression might help him to understand
her behavior. As usual, she had quickened her pace unconsciously, and
was now walking a little in front of him; but he could gain little
information from her eyes, which looked steadily at the brown heather,
or from the lines drawn seriously upon her forehead. Thus to lose touch
with her, for he had no idea what she was thinking, was so unpleasant to
him that he began to talk about his grievances again, without, however,
much conviction in his voice.

"If you have no feeling for me, wouldn't it be kinder to say so to me in
private?"

"Oh, William," she burst out, as if he had interrupted some absorbing
train of thought, "how you go on about feelings! Isn't it better not to
talk so much, not to be worrying always about small things that don't
really matter?"

"That's the question precisely," he exclaimed. "I only want you to tell
me that they don't matter. There are times when you seem indifferent to
everything. I'm vain, I've a thousand faults; but you know they're not
everything; you know I care for you."

"And if I say that I care for you, don't you believe me?"

"Say it, Katharine! Say it as if you meant it! Make me feel that you
care for me!"

She could not force herself to speak a word. The heather was growing dim
around them, and the horizon was blotted out by white mist. To ask her
for passion or for certainty seemed like asking that damp prospect for
fierce blades of fire, or the faded sky for the intense blue vault of
June.

He went on now to tell her of his love for her, in words which bore,
even to her critical senses, the stamp of truth; but none of this
touched her, until, coming to a gate whose hinge was rusty, he heaved
it open with his shoulder, still talking and taking no account of his
effort. The virility of this deed impressed her; and yet, normally, she
attached no value to the power of opening gates. The strength of muscles