"I do believe you're glad I came, and--woke you up," she laughed.

The man leant back luxuriously and propped himself against the post of the hand-rail.

"I am, surely," he said with conviction. "I've been thinking about picnics. It seems to me they're a heap of fun----"

"So you stole away by yourself to enjoy this one."

Betty's brown eyes glanced slyly at him. There was a half smile in them, and yet they were serious. Dave began to refill his pipe.

"Well, Betty, you see I just thought I'd like a smoke. I've been with the kiddies all morning."

Suddenly the girl sat round facing him.

"Dave, I'm a little beast. I oughtn't to have made you come. I know you don't care for this sort of thing, only--well, you are so kind, and you are so fond of making people happy. And you--you---- Oh, Dave, I--I want to tell you something. That's--that's why I was hunting for you."

She had turned from him, and was gazing out down the stream now. Her face was flushed a deep scarlet. For an instant she had encountered his steady gray eyes and her confusion had been complete. She felt as though he had read right down into her very soul.

Dave put his pipe away. The serious expression of his rugged face was unchanged, but the smile in his eyes had suddenly become more p.r.o.nounced.

"So that's why you hunted me out?" he said gently. "Well, Betty, you can tell me."

He had seen the blushing face. He had noted the embarra.s.sment and hesitancy, and the final desperate plunge. He knew in his heart what was coming, and the pain of that knowledge was so acute that he could almost have cried out. Yet he sat there waiting, his eyes smiling, his face calmly grave as it always was.

For nearly a minute neither spoke. Then the man's deep voice urged the girl.

"Well?"

Betty rested her face in her hands and propped her elbows on her knees.

All her embarra.s.sment had gone now. She was thinking, thinking, and when at last her words came that tone of excitement which she had used just a moment before had quite gone out of her voice.

"It's Jim," she said quietly. "He's asked me to marry him. I've promised--and--and he's gone to speak to uncle."

Dave took out his pipe again and looked into the bowl of it.

"I guessed it was that," he said, after a while. Then he fumbled for his tobacco. "And--are you happy--little Betty?" he asked a moment later.

"Yes--I--I think so."

"You think so?"

Dave was astonished out of himself.

"You only think so?" he went on, his breath coming quickly.

Betty sat quite still and the man watched her, with his pipe and tobacco gripped tightly in his great hand. He was struggling with a mad desire to crush this girl to his heart and defy any one to take her from him. It was a terrible moment. But the wild impulse died down. He took a deep breath and--slowly filled his pipe.

"Tell me," he said, and his tone was very tender.

The girl turned to him. She rested an arm on his bent knee and looked up into his face. There was no longer any hesitation or doubt. She was pale under the warm tanning of her cheeks, but she was very pretty, and, to Dave, wildly seductive as she thus appealed to him.

"Oh, Dave, I must tell you all. You are my only real friend. You, I know, will understand, and can help me. If I went to uncle, good and kind as he is, I feel he would not understand. And auntie, she is so matter-of-fact and practical. But you--you are different from anybody else."

The man nodded.

"I have loved Jim for so long," she went on hurriedly. "Long--long before he ever even noticed me. To me he has always been everything a man should and could be. You see, he is so kind and thoughtful, so brave, so masterful, so--so handsome, with just that dash of recklessness which makes him so fascinating to a girl. I have watched him pay attention to other girls, and night after night I have cried myself to sleep about it. Dave, you have never known what it is to love anybody, so all this may seem silly to you, but I only want to show you how much I have always cared for Jim. Well, after a long time he began to take notice of me. I remember it so well," she went on, with a far-away look in her eyes. "It was a year ago, at our Church Social. He spent a lot of time with me there, and gave me a box of candy, and then asked permission to see me home. Dave, from that moment I was in a seventh heaven of happiness. Every day I have felt and hoped that he would ask me to be his wife. I have longed for it, prayed for it, dreaded it, and lived in a dream of happiness. And now he has asked me."

She turned away to the bustling stream. Her eyes had become pathetically sad.

"And----" Dave prompted her.

"Oh, I don't know." She shook her head a little helplessly. "It all seems different now."

"Different?"

"Yes, that wildly happy feeling has gone."

"You are--unhappy?"

The man's voice shook as he put his question.

"It isn't that. I'm happy enough, I suppose. Only--only--I think I'm frightened now, or something. All my dreams seem to have tumbled about my ears. I have no longer that wonderful looking forward. Is it because he is mine now, and no one can take him from me? Or is it," her voice dropped to an awed whisper, "that--I--don't----"

She broke off as though afraid to say all she feared. Dave lit his pipe and smoked slowly and thoughtfully. He had gone through his ordeal listening to her, and now felt that he could face anything without giving his own secret away. He must rea.s.sure her. He must remove the doubt in her mind, for, in his quiet, reasoning way, he told himself that all her future happiness was at stake.

"No, it's not that, Betty," he said earnestly. "It's not that you love him less. It's just that for all that year you've thought and thought and hoped about it--till there's nothing more to it," he added lamely.

"You see, it's the same with all things. Realization is nothing. It's all in the antic.i.p.ation. You wait, little girl. When things are fixed, and Parson Tom has said 'right,' you'll--why, you'll just be the happiest little bit of a girl in Malkern. That's sure."

Betty lifted her eyes to his ugly face and looked straight into the kindly eyes. Just for one impulsive moment she reached out and took hold of his knotty hand and squeezed it.

"Dave, you are the dearest man in the world. You are the kindest and best," she cried with unusual emotion. "I wonder----" and she turned away to hide the tears that had suddenly welled up into her troubled eyes.

But Dave had seen them, and he dared not trust himself to speak. He sat desperately still and sucked at his pipe, emitting great clouds of smoke till the pungent fumes bit his tongue.

Then relief came from an unexpected quarter. There was a sharp crackling of bush just above where they sat and the scrunch of crushing pine cones trodden under foot, and Jim Truscott stepped on to the bridge.

"Ah, here you are at last. My word, but I had a job to find you."

His tone was light and easy, but his usually smiling face was clouded.

Betty sprang to her feet.

"What is it, Jim?" she demanded, searching his face. "Something is wrong. I know it is."

Jim seated himself directly in front of Dave, who now watched him with added interest. He now noticed several things in the boy he did not remember having observed before. The face in repose, or rather without the smile it usually wore, bore signs of weakness about the mouth. The whole of the lower part of it lacked the imprint of keen decision.

There was something almost effeminate about the mould of his full lips, something soft and yielding--even vicious. The rest of his face was good, and even intellectual. He was particularly handsome, with crisp curling hair of a light brown that closely matched his large expressive eyes. His tall athletic figure was strangely at variance with the intellectual cast of his face and head. But what Dave most noticed were the distinct lines of dissipation about his eyes. And he wondered how it was he had never seen them before. Perhaps it was that he so rarely saw Jim without his cheery smile. Perhaps, now that Betty had told him what had taken place, his observation was closer, keener.

"What is it, Jim?" He added his voice to Betty's inquiry. Jim's face became gloomier. He turned to the girl, who had resumed her seat at Dave's side.

"Have you told him?" he asked, and for a moment his eyes brightened with a shadow of their old smile.