ned rather to the thought of
sounding Mrs. Blanchard, and finally nerved himself to right action and
determined to address Chris. He felt this present heart-shaking suspense
must be laid at rest, for the peace of his soul, and therefore he took
his courage in his hands and faced the ordeal.

That day Chris was going up to Newtake. She had not yet settled there,
though her brother and Sam Bonus were already upon the ground, but the
girl came and went, busying her fingers with a hundred small matters
that daily increased the comfort of the little farm. Her way lay usually
by the coomb, and Martin, having learned that she was visiting Will on
the occasion in question, set out before her and awaited her here,
beside the river, in a lonely spot between the moorland above and the
forest below. He felt physically nervous, yet hope brightened his mind,
though he tried to strangle it. Worn and weary with his long struggle,
he paced up and down, now looking to the stile, now casting dissatisfied
glances upon his own person. Shaving with more than usual care, he had
cut his chin deeply, and, though he knew it not, the wound had bled
again since he left home and ruined both his collar and a new tie, put
on for the occasion.

Presently he saw her. A sunbonnet bobbed at the stile and Chris
appeared, bearing a roll of chintz for Newtake blinds. In her other hand
she carried half a dozen bluebells from the woods, and she came with the
free gait acquired in keeping stride through long tramps with Will when
yet her frocks were short. Martin loved her characteristic speed in
walking. So Diana doubtless moved. The spring sunshine had found Chris
and the clear, soft brown of her cheek was the most beautiful thing in
nature to the antiquary. He knew her face so well now: the dainty poise
of her head, the light of her eyes, the dark curls that always clustered
in the same places, the little updrawing at the corner of her mouth as
she smiled, the sudden gleam of her teeth when she laughed, and the
abrupt transitions of her expression from repose to gladness, from
gladness back again into repose.

She saw the man before she reached him, and waved her bluebells to show
that she had done so. Then he rose from his granite seat and took off
his hat and stood with it off, while his heart thundered, his eye
watered, and his mouth twitched. But he was outwardly calm by the time
Chris reached him.

"What a surprise to find 'e here, Martin! Yet not