"If you wish it."

"You know I do."

Yet when they went together across the fields, when they came to the
edge of the hop-garden and saw the neatly trailing vines, which this
year looked better and more promising than he could ever remember
before, they had nothing to say to one another, not a word. Once he took
her hand and held it for a moment, then let it go again; and at the
touch of her he thrilled, little dreaming how her heart responded.

He scarcely looked at her. If he had, he might have seen a glow in her
cheeks, a brightness in her eyes, the brightness born of a new and
wonderful hope.

"After all, after all," the girl was thinking. "I believe he cares for
me a little--not so much as he loves her, but a little, a little, and I
love him."

Connie smiled on them as they came in together. It was as she liked to
see them. She noticed the deep colouring in the girl's cheeks, the new
brightness in her eyes, and Connie, who always acted on generous
impulses, kissed her.

"What's that for?" Johnny cried. "Haven't you one for me too, Con?"

"Always, always," she said. She put her arms about his neck and hugged
him.

It seemed as if the clouds that had so long overcast this little house
had drifted away this calm Sabbath day, and the sun was shining down
gloriously on them.

For some time Connie had been quietly watching the girl. There came back
into her memory a promise given long ago. "I will do nothing, nothing,
Con, unless I tell you first."

She knew Ellice for the soul of honour; she had felt safe, and now she
was waiting.

"Well, Ellice, have you anything to say to me?" Johnny was gone after
dinner to his tiny study to wrestle with letters and figures that he
abhorred.

"Yes," Ellice said.

"I thought you had--well?"

"I am going to Starden," the girl said. "I am going to Starden this
afternoon, Con."

"What for?"

"To see--her?"

"Why--why, darling, why?"

"To ask her if she can be generous--and oh, I believe she can--to ask
her why she is taking him away from me when I love him so, and when--oh,
Con--Con, when I believe that he cares a little for me."

Con held out her arms, she caught the girl tightly.

"My love and my prayers and my wishes will go with you, darling."

CHAPTER XLII

"WALLS WE CANNOT BATTER DOWN"

"Why?" Helen asked. "Why isn't Johnny here to-day, Joan?"

"I do not know," Joan said. She had scarcely given a thought to Johnny
Everard that morning. A