that it was behind her on the frame of the harrow.
“Let us go on now,” she said abruptly. “The rain has stopped.”
“That little path goes straight to Immering,” said Mr. Lewisham.
“But, four o’clock?”
He drew out his watch, and his eyebrows went up. It was already nearly a quarter past four.
“Is it past four?” she asked, and abruptly they were face to face with parting. That Lewisham had to take “duty” at half-past five seemed a thing utterly trivial. “Surely,” he said, only slowly realising what this parting meant. “But must you? I—I want to talk to you.”
“Haven’t you been talking to me?”
“It isn’t that. Besides—no.”
She stood looking at him. “I promised to be home by four,” she said. “Mrs. Frobisher has tea....”
“We may never have a chance to see one another again.”
“Well?”
Lewisham suddenly turned very white.
“Don’t leave me,” he said, breaking a tense silence and with a sudden stress in his voice. “Don’t leave me. Stop with me yet—for a little while.... You ... You can lose your way.”
“You seem to think,” she said, forcing a laugh, “that I live without eating and drinking.”
“I have wanted to talk to you so much. The first time I saw you.... At first I dared not.... I did not know you would let me talk.... And now, just as I am—happy, you are going.”
He stopped abruptly. Her eyes were downcast. “No,” she said, tracing a curve with the point of her shoe. “No. I am not going.”
Lewisham restrained an impulse to shout. “You will come to Immering?” he cried, and as they went along the narrow path through the wet grass, he began to tell her with simple frankness how he cared for her company, “I would not
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