y I am wavering about
except it be you; she's a fiction, and a silly one. There is no one
in the world I care for as I do for you. There is nothing in the world
that I can name or dream of so precious to me as this hand that I now
give up with reluctance, under the delusion that I have not held it
long enough to make you guess the whole of the story." All that was
said, but what an insignificant little thing it was that said it!

As for Miss Sally, it was only her subself that recognised that any
one had said anything at all. Her superself dismissed it as a fancy;
and, therefore, being put on its mettle to justify that action, it
pointed out to her that, after that, it would be the merest cowardice
to shirk finding out about Dr. Conrad's young lady. She would
manage it somehow by the end of this walk. But still an element of
postponement came in, and had its say. Yet it excited no suspicions
in her mind, or she ignored them. She was quite within her rights,
technically, in doing so.

It was necessary, though, to tide over the momentary reciprocity--the
slight exchange of consciousnesses that, if indulged, must have ended
in a climax--with a show of stiffness; a little pretence that we were
a lady and gentleman taking a walk, otherwise undescribed. When the
doctor relinquished Sally's hand, he felt bound to ignore the fact
that hers went on ringing like a bell in the palm of his, and sending
musical messages up his arm; and to talk about dewponds. They occur on
the tops of downs, and are very scientific. High service and no rate
are the terms of their water-supply. Dr. Conrad knew all about them,
and was aware that one they passed was also a relic of prehistoric
man, who had dug it, and didn't live long enough, poor fellow! to know
it was a dewpond, or prehistoric. Sally was interested. A little bird
with very long legs didn't seem to care, and walked away without undue
hurry, but amazingly quickly, for all that.

"What a little darling!" Sally said. "Did you hear that delicious
little noise he made? Isn't he a water-ouzel?" Sally took the first
name that she thought sounded probable. She really was making talk,
to contribute her share to the fiction about the lady and gentleman.
So was her companion. He reflected for a moment whether he could say
anything about Grallae and Scolopacidae, or such like, but decided
against heaping up instructive matter on the top of the recent
dewponds. He gave it up, and harked back qu