"I think you have been unconscious that you were avoiding me," Mr. Brand
replied. "You have not even known that I was there."

"Well, you are here now, Mr. Brand!" said Gertrude, with a little laugh.
"I know that very well."

He made no rejoinder. He simply walked beside her slowly, as they were
obliged to walk over the soft grass. Presently they came to another
gate, which was closed. Mr. Brand laid his hand upon it, but he made no
movement to open it; he stood and looked at his companion. "You are very
much interested--very much absorbed," he said.

Gertrude glanced at him; she saw that he was pale and that he looked
excited. She had never seen Mr. Brand excited before, and she felt
that the spectacle, if fully carried out, would be impressive, almost
painful. "Absorbed in what?" she asked. Then she looked away at the
illuminated sky. She felt guilty and uncomfortable, and yet she was
vexed with herself for feeling so. But Mr. Brand, as he stood there
looking at her with his small, kind, persistent eyes, represented an
immense body of half-obliterated obligations, that were rising again
into a certain distinctness.

"You have new interests, new occupations," he went on. "I don't know
that I can say that you have new duties. We have always old ones,
Gertrude," he added.

"Please open the gate, Mr. Brand," she said; and she felt as if, in
saying so, she were cowardly and petulant. But he opened the gate, and
allowed her to pass; then he closed it behind himself. Before she had
time to turn away he put out his hand and held her an instant by the
wrist.

"I want to say something to you," he said.

"I know what you want to say," she answered. And she was on the point of
adding, "And I know just how you will say it;" but these words she kept
back.

"I love you, Gertrude," he said. "I love you very much; I love you more
than ever."

He said the words just as she had known he would; she had heard them
before. They had no charm for her; she had said to herself before that
it was very strange. It was supposed to be delightful for a woman to
listen to such words; but these seemed to her flat and mechanical. "I
wish you would forget that," she declared.

"How can I--why should I?" he asked.

"I have made you no promise--given you no pledge," she said, looking at
him, with her voice trembling a little.

"You have let me feel that I have an influence over you. You have opened
your mind to me."

"I never opened my