d his watch, and found that they might stay for nearly an hour.
There was a bruised sweetness in the atmosphere about them, which they
discovered presently to be wild thyme. They were sitting on a bed of it.
He thought of it afterwards as one of the sweetnesses that must be
always associated with Mary Gray, like the smell of violets. The full
golden sun poured on them, warming them to the heart. The bees buzzed
about the wild thyme and the golden heads of gorse. Little blue moths
fluttered on the hillside. The rabbits, lower down the hill, came out of
their burrows again and gambolled in the sunshine.

"How sweet it all is!" Mary said impulsively. "I shall always remember
this day."

"And I."

He plucked idly at the wild thyme and the little golden vetches among
the coarse grass of the hillside. A fold of the blue dress lay beside
him. He touched it inadvertently, and the colour came to his cheek:
unobserved, because he had his hat pulled down over his eyes, and Mary
was sketching for him in detail the plan of her book. It interested him
because it was hers. Her voice sounded like poetry. He had not wanted
poetry. Blue-books and statistics had satisfied him very well, hitherto.
But, to be sure, he had read poetry in his Oxford days. Lines and tags
of it came into his mind dreamily as he listened to her voice. He did
not touch that fold of her gown again. If he was sure--but he was not
quite sure. And there was Nelly. He supposed Nelly cared for him if she
was willing to marry him. If Nelly cared--why, then, he had no right to
think of other possibilities.

Something had gone out of the glory and enchantment of the day as they
went back down the hillside. Those lambs of clouds had suddenly banked
themselves up into grey fleeces which covered the sun. The wind blew a
little cold.

"It is the capriciousness of April," said Mary, unconscious of any
change in the mental atmosphere.

He stopped on the downhill path, took her cloak from her arm, and with
kind carefulness laid it about her shoulders. As he arranged it he
touched one of the soft curls that lay on her white neck, and again a
thrill passed through him. He began to wish that he had not planned this
country expedition, after all. He ought really to have started this
morning for the Continent. Going on Saturday, he would have very little
time to stay.

On the homeward way Mrs. Morres reproached him with his dulness. What
had come to him?

He hesitated, gla