redness of her will, even though
that acknowledgement might frustrate every hope of his love. He greatly
disliked that obligation.

She was abstractedly murmuring defensive things about the Scotch. "And
Scotland is such a lovely place. Even round here. Dalmeny. Cramond Brig.
Hawthornden. And oh, the Pentlands! Have you not been to the Pentlands
yet? Oh, but they're the grandest place in the world. There are lochs
hidden behind the range the way you'd never think. And waterfalls. The
water comes down red with the peat. And miles and miles of heather."

"Take me there, Ellen."

"Would you like to come? Let's go next Saturday. I've got the whole day
off. Mr. James said it was my due, what with the overtime I've been
doing. It'll be lovely. I've had nobody to go with since Rachael Wing
went to London. But would you truly care to come? It's just moors.
You'll not turn up your nose at it?"

"Anywhere I went with you I'd like."

She started and began to walk on. It was as if the sheet of tissue had
grown too heavy for her young hand and she had dropped it. Although he
went on talking about how much he liked Scotland, and how intelligent he
found the workmen at the cordite factory at Broxburn, she hardly
answered, but moved her head from side to side like a horse galled by
its collar. Had he thought her a bold girl, fixing up a walk with him so
eagerly? And ought he to have called her by her Christian name? Of
course he was so much older that perhaps he felt that he had a right to
do it. When they passed through the arch into Hume Park Square she saw a
light in the dining-room window and said, "Mother's home before us."

She did not know that in that minute she had decided the course of her
life. For she did not know that just before she spoke she had sighed,
and that Yaverland had heard her and perceived that she sighed because
soon they would no longer be alone together. Perhaps something like fear
would have come upon her if she had known how immense he felt with
victory; how he contemplated her willingness to love him in a passion of
timeless wonder, watching her journey from heaven, stepping from star to
star, all the way down the dark whirling earth of his heart; and how
even while he felt a solemn agony at his unworthiness he was busily
contriving their immediate marriage. For there was a steely quality
about his love that would have been more appropriate to some vindictive
purpose.

It was apparent to him, when