"But you can’t," she had persisted again and again. "You can’t—you are engaged to me."
"I promised your mother that I would go," he returned, watching her face closely. "Only she can release me, but I shall not ask her to do so—it would not be honourable. Shall you care, Hazel? Shall you miss me?"
A few days later Helen, with her gentle smile, had most unexpectedly cancelled the sentence of banishment.
"It is of no use your going, Paul," she had said. "The child will fret and you—you will be miserable."
"And so you feel you cannot endure the boys’ banter?" Paul asked of his companion, somewhat ruefully.
"Oh well," she answered cheerfully, "I must, for the present. It is rather nice being engaged to you," she continued naïvely, "and it is so convenient."
"You see," she explained, "I never could get about anywhere: the boys being almost always away, and Miles busy. Besides, it was very lonely, with only a servant, about twenty yards behind you. But now, now I can go great distances, in the trap if we wish, and we can talk, and altogether it is very comfortable."
"Very," agreed Paul, at once amused and dismayed.
Something dry in the tone of his response made her look up quickly.
"I hope you don’t misunderstand me," she said timidly. "I should not like you to think I was only making use of you. I—I am very fond of you," she added, her voice sinking, "and I enjoy being engaged, very much."
Paul sighed. It was a great admission, this, from her; but oh, how unsatisfying! It was but a whet to his appetite, it made him hungrier than ever.
"You have not yet told me what the boys call _you_," he said presently, trying to speak lightly.
"I really could not," she replied, and he was surprised and distressed to see that she shrank from him, albeit the movement was scarcely perceptible.
By dint of long and earnest persuasion he wrung from her a promise that she would tell him—some time—and then, with a sense of being hunted and driven to bay, their destination reached, Hazel, with a desperate courage, feeling that she had better get over the inevitable at once, seized the opportunity when Paul’s back was turned to her—whilst he examined the horse’s hoof for a suspected stone—to whisper almost inaudibly, somewhere near the region of his ear: