yone: so her friend,
her companion, her lover, was Nature. She saw the sun declining wanly.
In the dusky, cold hedgerows were some red leaves. She lingered to
gather them, tenderly, passionately. The love in her finger-tips
caressed the leaves; the passion in her heart came to a glow upon the
leaves.

Suddenly she realised she was alone in a strange road, and she hurried
forward. Turning a corner in the lane, she came upon Paul, who stood
bent over something, his mind fixed on it, working away steadily,
patiently, a little hopelessly. She hesitated in her approach, to watch.

He remained concentrated in the middle of the road. Beyond, one rift of
rich gold in that colourless grey evening seemed to make him stand out
in dark relief. She saw him, slender and firm, as if the setting sun had
given him to her. A deep pain took hold of her, and she knew she
must love him. And she had discovered him, discovered in him a
rare potentiality, discovered his loneliness. Quivering as at some
"annunciation", she went slowly forward.

At last he looked up.

"Why," he exclaimed gratefully, "have you waited for me!"

She saw a deep shadow in his eyes.

"What is it?" she asked.

"The spring broken here;" and he showed her where his umbrella was
injured.

Instantly, with some shame, she knew he had not done the damage himself,
but that Geoffrey was responsible.

"It is only an old umbrella, isn't it?" she asked.

She wondered why he, who did not usually trouble over trifles, made such
a mountain of this molehill.

"But it was William's an' my mother can't help but know," he said
quietly, still patiently working at the umbrella.

The words went through Miriam like a blade. This, then, was the
confirmation of her vision of him! She looked at him. But there was
about him a certain reserve, and she dared not comfort him, not even
speak softly to him.

"Come on," he said. "I can't do it;" and they went in silence along the
road.

That same evening they were walking along under the trees by Nether
Green. He was talking to her fretfully, seemed to be struggling to
convince himself.

"You know," he said, with an effort, "if one person loves, the other
does."

"Ah!" she answered. "Like mother said to me when I was little, 'Love
begets love.'"

"Yes, something like that, I think it MUST be."

"I hope so, because, if it were not, love might be a very terrible
thing," she said.

"Yes, but it IS--at least with most people,"