ning, you see," he smiled, holding her two
hands in his and looking down at her from his greater height. "Yet I
find your crouching back in the shadow as if you were still frightened
to be seen. Are you?"

"A little," she admitted. "You see, the road is a public one. People are
always passing, and--How good it was of you to come all this long
distance out of your way. Indeed, I am very, very grateful, Mr. Cleek."

"Thank you," he said gravely. "But you need not be. Indeed, the
gratitude should be all on my side. I said I would come if ever you
wanted me, and you gave me an opportunity to keep my word. As for it
being out of my way to come here, it is but a little distance to the
Three Desires and a long one to Lady Chepstow's place, so it is you, not
I, that have 'gone out of the way!' It was good of you to give me this
grace--I should have been sorry to go back to town without saying
good-bye."

"But need you go so soon?" she asked. "Lady Chepstow will feel slighted,
I know, if she hears that you have been in the neighbourhood and have
not called. She is a friend, you know, a warm, true friend--always
grateful for what you did, always glad to see you. Why not stop on a
day or two and call and see her?"

A robin flicked down out of the cypress tree and perched on the gate
top, looked up at Cleek with bright, sharp eyes, flung out a wee little
trill, and was off again.

"I'm afraid it is out of the question--I'm afraid I'm not so deeply
interested in Lady Chepstow as, perhaps, I ought to be," said Cleek,
noticing in a dim subconscious way that the robin had flown on to the
church door and perched there, and was in full song now. "Besides, she
does not know of me what you do. Perhaps, if she did.... Oh, well, it
doesn't matter. Thank you for coming to say good-bye, Miss Lorne. It was
kind of you. Now I must emulate Poor Jo, and 'move on' again."

"And without any reward!" said Ailsa with a smile and a sigh. "Without
expecting any; without asking any; without wanting any!"

He stood a moment, twisting his heel round and round in the gravel of
the pathway, and breathing hard, his eyes on the ground, and his lips
indrawn. Then, of a sudden--"Perhaps I did want one. Perhaps I've always
wanted one. And hoped to get it some day perhaps from--you!" he said.
And looked up at her as a man looks but once at one woman ever.

She had come a step nearer; she was standing there with the shadows
behind her and the light on her