for when they were
silent they were keenly conscious of each other's presence, and yet
words were either too trivial or too large.

She murmured inarticulately, ending, "And you?"

"Yes, yes," he replied; but there were so many things to be said, and
now that they were alone it seemed necessary to bring themselves still
more near, and to surmount a barrier which had grown up since they had
last spoken. It was difficult, frightening even, oddly embarrassing. At
one moment he was clear-sighted, and, at the next, confused.

"Now I'm going to begin at the beginning," he said resolutely. "I'm
going to tell you what I ought to have told you before. In the first
place, I've never been in love with other women, but I've had other
women. Then I've great faults. I'm very lazy, I'm moody--" He persisted,
in spite of her exclamation, "You've got to know the worst of me. I'm
lustful. I'm overcome by a sense of futility--incompetence. I ought
never to have asked you to marry me, I expect. I'm a bit of a snob; I'm
ambitious--"

"Oh, our faults!" she cried. "What do they matter?" Then she demanded,
"Am I in love--is this being in love--are we to marry each other?"

Overcome by the charm of her voice and her presence, he exclaimed, "Oh,
you're free, Rachel. To you, time will make no difference, or marriage
or--"

The voices of the others behind them kept floating, now farther, now
nearer, and Mrs. Flushing's laugh rose clearly by itself.

"Marriage?" Rachel repeated.

The shouts were renewed behind, warning them that they were bearing too
far to the left. Improving their course, he continued, "Yes, marriage."
The feeling that they could not be united until she knew all about him
made him again endeavour to explain.

"All that's been bad in me, the things I've put up with--the second
best--"

She murmured, considered her own life, but could not describe how it
looked to her now.

"And the loneliness!" he continued. A vision of walking with her through
the streets of London came before his eyes. "We will go for walks
together," he said. The simplicity of the idea relieved them, and for
the first time they laughed. They would have liked had they dared to
take each other by the hand, but the consciousness of eyes fixed on them
from behind had not yet deserted them.

"Books, people, sights--Mrs. Nutt, Greeley, Hutchinson," Hewet murmured.

With every word the mist which had enveloped them, making them seem
unreal to each oth