"And at the risk of being a little damper, I will come; it's ridiculous to argue the point."

With all her boasted independence May was not sorry for Paul's escort when she stepped out into the night. The rain was descending in a steady down pour, the wind came sighing up the valley, and the river swept on its way, lapping against the bark with a dreary, sobbing sound. They walked on in silence side by side until May broke it with an impatient laugh.

"The dreariness of the night has infected us both. You are not often dull. You are always either amusing or interesting. Talk, please."

"I can't talk. I've not an idea in my head except that, if the river gets much higher, there will be a flood, and no more Rudham! And personally, I should not care much if it swept it away and me with it."

"You do yourself injustice; you are very interesting. Why this fit of the blues? You are going to be ill, I expect; you looked rather ill when you came in just now."

"Not a bit of it," said Paul, with a little laugh; "draggled and wet, but not ill. Do you remember that you told me once, a year ago, that I was isolating myself from my fellows? Then I felt as if I could defy that isolation. To-day I have been conscious of it; Robinson Crusoe on his desert island could not feel more utterly lonely. I have been kicking against the p.r.i.c.ks, wondering why I am condemned to a life and a place which I hate."

"You have no business to complain of a solitude which you have created yourself."

"Oh no; I blame no one."

"And you have Sally----"

"I _had_ Sally. She was my disciple and satellite; but now I shall always be having to take care that I don't hurt her feelings. The slippered ease of the old relationship is dead; I can't talk out to her."

"But you can talk out to me as much as you like. I shan't agree with you; but my faith, such as it is, is not new-born like Sally's. I wish it were half as strong."

Only under cover of the dark would May have dared to say as much.

"No, I can't even talk to you; the friendship is dead too. That was the ghost I saw this afternoon; it would have been a short-lived joy, any way, for I hear you are going to leave Rudham."

"You are talking in riddles now!" cried May. "What should kill our friendship? and where am I going to?"

"To Fairfield; so rumour says."

May stopped short in her walk, and Paul heard her breath coming unevenly. When she spoke again her voice was low, but angry.

"You outstrip the limits of friendship in daring to tell me what the gossips here say of me."

"I had no intention of telling you. I suppose it slipped out because I hate to believe it true."

"You need not believe it; I am not going to marry Sir Cecil Bland,"

said May, coldly. "What has it to do with you, may I ask?"

"Thank Heaven!" muttered Paul, under his breath.

"What have you against him?"

"Nothing. Except that I suppose he loves you, and I love you too, and, although I know better than you can tell me, that my love is perfectly hopeless, I can bear it if I may let you live in my heart a little while, as the one woman in all the world to me, the only woman I have ever loved or ever wished to marry. That must not have been if you were pledged to marry some one else."

"Oh, stop!" said May, laying an entreating hand upon his arm; "I feel as if I had been so cruel, I would not rest until I had you for a friend, but I never dreamed of this."

"Nor I, until to-day," said Paul. "But when I heard that some one else was likely to marry you I knew."

"Put me back into the old niche. Can't we forget about to-night?"

Paul laughed a little harshly.

"Forget!" he echoed drearily. "How little women know the way a man can love? With you I shall only rank as one of the many moths that have singed their wings by flying too closely about you."

"No, no! I shall think of you always as my one man-friend, to whom I could say anything that was in my head. I shall miss him dreadfully."

"And under no circ.u.mstances can you think of me in a different light?"

"I don't know, but I think not," May said simply. "You may think it odd, or call me heartless, but I have not yet met the man I wish to marry. There! you see I trust you to the last. Good-bye, my friend."

Paul bent over the hand that was put into his own and kissed it, and went home feeling that the chill of the night had closed about his heart.

CHAPTER X.

RIVAL SUITORS.

"Where have you been, May? I have been frightened to death about you."

The process was apparently a painless one, judging from the extreme comfort of Mrs. Webster's surroundings: her easy-chair drawn close to the fire but sheltered from it by a screen, the lamp on the table adjusted to a nicety behind, the ill.u.s.trated papers ready cut for use, and the last new novel lying open on her lap. May seated herself leisurely and stretched out her hands to the blaze before she answered.

"I've been having tea at the cottage."

"And came home in the wet and dark by yourself?"

"No. Mr. Lessing saw me home."

"Of course; I know now that your staying at home to-day to take Sally to the confirmation was just an excuse. You did not want to come with me to Fairfield."

"No, I did not; but I honestly did want to go with Sally: she looked so pretty, mother. I've not been at a confirmation since I was confirmed myself."

"I don't want to talk of that just now, May. Lady Bland is terribly hurt at the way you have treated Cecil. He's quite ill, poor fellow!"

"I'm sorry."

"You are not," snapped Mrs. Webster, "or you would have been kinder to him!"

"Need we go over this oft-trodden ground again?" May asked rather wearily. "I can only reiterate that I really can't and won't marry any one I do not care for."

"I don't believe there is the man in creation that you will care for.

It really would be wise for you to accept the one you least dislike."

"Or not marry anybody."

"That is a more than likely alternative. You are five-and-twenty now, and you might have been married over and over again."