iries over-step the bounds of your
indulgence. You tell me that the premise is correct. I understand,
therefore, that you admit that you have acted on mere impulse; that, in
fact, our friend Goodenough was speaking truly when he called it
bluntly a 'whim.'"

"I am not skilled in dialectics," I said, feeling rather proud of the
word all the same, and mightily astonished at my coolness; "but I
should not call it a whim, but rather an intuition. I suppose there is
a difference?"

He bent his brows together and paused in his walk; then he replied:

"Yes: there is a distinct difference. I cannot deny or disregard the
power of the mind to discern truth without reasoning, but the two have
so much in common that I think a whim may sometimes be mistaken for an
intuition. Can you prove to me that this was an intuition?"

"No," I said, and I think it was a wise answer; at any rate it seemed
to please him; "nobody could do that. Time alone can justify my action
even to myself. I am going to be on the lookout for the proof daily."

He smiled again. "You know what would have been said if a man had done
this?" he said deliberately; "it would be asked, Who is the woman?"

I blushed furiously, and hated myself for it, though he was nearly old
enough to have been my grandfather. "I always feel glad that Eve did
not blame the other sex," I replied, "and, in spite of the annoying
colour in my face, I can say with a clear conscience that there is no
man in the case at all."

"Do not be grieved with me," he said, just as calmly as ever. "I
realised that I was taking a big risk, but I wished to clear the ground
at the outset. I have done so, but I hesitate to venture further."

His tone was so very kindly that I, too, determined to take a big risk,
though I half feared he would not understand, or understanding would be
amused. So I told him something of my life in London, and how its
problems had perplexed and depressed me, and I told him of the heather
and how it had called me; and I think something of the passion of life
shook my voice as I spoke, and I expressed more than I had realised
myself until then.

He listened with grave and fixed attention, and did not reply at once.
Then, halting again in his walk, though only for a second, he said:

"Miss Holden, subconscious influences have been at work upon you for
some time past. You have experienced the loneliness which is never so
hard to bear as when one is jostled