The Woodlanders

To renounce her forever--that was then the end of it for him, after

all. There was no longer any question about suitability, or room for

tiffs on petty tastes. The curtain had fallen again between them. She

could not be his. The cruelty of their late revived hope was now

terrible. How could they all have been so simple as to suppose this

thing could be done?

It was at this moment that, hearing some one coming behind him, he

turned and saw her hastening on between the thickets. He perceived in

an instant that she did not know the blighting news.

"Giles, why didn't you come across to me?" she asked, with arch

reproach. "Didn't you see me sitting there ever so long?"

"Oh yes," he said, in unprepared, extemporized tones, for her

unexpected presence caught him without the slightest plan of behavior

in the conjuncture. His manner made her think that she had been too

chiding in her speech; and a mild scarlet wave passed over her as she

resolved to soften it.

"I have had another letter from my father," she hastened to continue.

"He thinks he may come home this evening. And--in view of his

hopes--it will grieve him if there is any little difference between us,

Giles."

"There is none," he said, sadly regarding her from the face downward as

he pondered how to lay the cruel truth bare.

"Still--I fear you have not quite forgiven me about my being

uncomfortable at the inn."

"I have, Grace, I'm sure."

"But you speak in quite an unhappy way," she returned, coming up close

to him with the most winning of the many pretty airs that appertained

to her. "Don't you think you will ever be happy, Giles?"

He did not reply for some instants. "When the sun shines on the north

front of Sherton Abbey--that's when my happiness will come to me!" said

he, staring as it were into the earth.

"But--then that means that there is something more than my offending

you in not liking The Three Tuns. If it is because I--did not like to

let you kiss me in the Abbey--well, you know, Giles, that it was not on

account of my cold feelings, but because I did certainly, just then,

think it was rather premature, in spite of my poor father. That was

the true reason--the sole one. But I do not want to be hard--God knows

I do not," she said, her voice fluctuating. "And perhaps--as I am on

the verge of freedom--I am not right, after all, in thinking there is

any harm in your kissing me."