e moved a little to one side and concealed the basket with her
dress.

He began to fear that something was wrong. "Is it possible that you have
ventured among those poisonous plants again?" he said. "Are you ill?"

"Not at all," she replied, rousing herself a little. "Your solicitude is
quite thrown away. I am perfectly well."

"I beg your pardon," he said, snubbed. "I thought--Don't you think it
dangerous to sit on that damp wall?"

"It is not damp. It is crumbling into dust with dryness." An unnatural
laugh, with which she concluded, intensified his uneasiness.

He began a sentence, stopped, and to gain time to recover himself,
placed his bicycle in the opposite ditch; a proceeding which she
witnessed with impatience, as it indicated his intention to stay and
talk. She, however, was the first to speak; and she did so with a
callousness that shocked him.

"Have you heard the news?"

"What news?"

"About Mr. Trefusis and Agatha. They are engaged."

"So Trefusis told me. I met him just now in the village. I was very glad
to hear it."

"Of course."

"But I had a special reason for being glad."

"Indeed?"

"I was desperately afraid, before he told me the truth, that he had
other views--views that might have proved fatal to my dearest hopes."

Gertrude frowned at him, and the frown roused him to brave her. He lost
his self-command, already shaken by her strange behavior. "You know that
I love you, Miss Lindsay," he said. "It may not be a perfect love, but,
humanly speaking, it is a true one. I almost told you so that day when
we were in the billiard room together; and I did a very dishonorable
thing the same evening. When you were speaking to Trefusis in the avenue
I was close to you, and I listened."

"Then you heard him," cried Gertrude vehemently. "You heard him swear
that he was in earnest."

"Yes," said Erskine, trembling, "and I thought he meant in earnest in
loving you. You can hardly blame me for that: I was in love myself; and
love is blind and jealous. I never hoped again until he told me that he
was to be married to Miss Wylie. May I speak to you, now that I know I
was mistaken, or that you have changed your mind?"

"Or that he has changed his mind," said Gertrude scornfully.

Erskine, with a new anxiety for her sake, checked himself. Her dignity
was dear to him, and he saw that her disappointment had made her
reckless of it. "Do not say anything to me now, Miss Lindsay, lest--"

"What ha