ill smoke a pipe on the verandah until
you are ready."

Marion always enjoyed these walks with Mr. Atherton. He was at all times
a pleasant companion, and when alone with her always exerted himself to
amuse her, though he sometimes vexed her by talking to her as if she
were a child. To-day he was much more silent than usual, and more than
once she looked up in wonder at his face as he walked along puffing at
his pipe, with his hands deep in his jacket pockets and his eyes bent on
the ground.

"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Atherton," she said at last with a
laugh. "It seems to me that you would have got on just as well without
me."

"Well, I was just thinking that I was a fool to ask you to come with me,
child." Marion opened her eyes in surprise. "You see, my dear," he went
on, "we all make fools of ourselves sometimes. I started in life by
making a fool of myself. I fell in love with a woman whom I thought
perfection. She was an arrant flirt, and was only amusing herself with
me till she hooked a young lord for whom she was angling. That was what
sent me roaming for the first time; and, as you know, having once
started I have kept it up ever since, that is till I came out here. I
had intended to stay six months; I have been here three years. Why have
I stopped so long? Simply, child, because I have again made a fool of
myself. I do not think I was conscious of it for the first two years,
and it was only when I saw, as I thought, that young Allen would win
you, that I recognized that I, a man of thirty-seven, was fool enough to
love a child just eighteen years younger than myself. At the same time I
was not fool enough to think that I had the smallest chance. I could not
stop here and watch another winning you, and at the same time I was so
weak that I could not go away altogether; and so you see I compromised
matters by going away for weeks and sometimes months at a time,
returning with the expectation each time of hearing that it was settled.
Now I hear that you have refused him, and, just as a drowning man grasps
at a straw, I resolved to have my fate absolutely settled before I sail.
Don't be afraid of saying 'no,' dear. I have never for a moment looked
for any other answer, but I think that I would rather have the 'no' than
go away without it, for in after years I might be fool enough to come to
think that possibly, just possibly, the answer, had I asked the
question, might have been 'yes.'"

He had stopped