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."