'My time in the holidays will be very limited,' she said. 'I have undertaken to give some help to a friend who is preparing to become a teacher, and'--she tried to smile--'I don't think I must do more work whilst at home than is really necessary.' 'No, that is true,' Wilfrid assented unwillingly. 'Never mind, there is plenty of time. Greek will be overcome, you will see. When we are all back in town and the days are dull, then I shall succeed in persuading you.' She looked about her as if with thought of quitting her place. Her companion was drawn into himself; he stroked mechanically with his finger-tips the fronds of bracken near him. 'I suppose I shall go up again in October,' he began. 'I wish there were no necessity for it.' 'But surely it is your one desire?' the other replied in genuine surprise. 'Not to return to Oxford. A few months ago it would have been, but this crisis in my life has changed me. I don't think I shall adapt myself again to those conditions. I want to work in a freer way. I had a positive zeal even for examinations; now that seems tame--well, boyish. I believe I have outgrown that stage; I feel a reluctance to go back to school. I suppose I must take my degree, and so on, but it will all be against the grain.' 'Your feeling will most likely alter when you have thoroughly recovered your health.' 'No, I don't think it will. Practically my health is all right. You don't,' he added with a smile, 'regard me as an irresponsible person, whose feeble remarks are to be received with kind allowance?' 'No, I did not mean that.' He gazed at her, and his face showed a growing trouble. 'You do not take too seriously what I said just now about the weakness of my mind? It would be horrible if you thought I had worked myself into a state of amiable imbecility, and was incapable henceforth of acting, thinking, or speaking with a sound intellect. Tell me, say in plain words that is not your way of interpreting me.' He had become very much in earnest. Raising himself to a position in which he rested on one hand, he looked straight into her face. 'Why don't you reply? Why don't you speak?' 'Because, Mr. Athel, it is surely needless to say that I have no such thought.' 'No, it is not needless; and even now you speak in a way which troubles me. Do not look away from me. What has my aunt told you about me?' She turned her face to him. Her self-command was so complete that not a throb of her leaping heart betrayed itself in vein or muscle. She even met his eyes with a placid gaze which he felt as a new aspect of her countenance. 'Mrs. Rossall has never spoken to me of your health,' she said. 'But my father's jokes; he has a way of humorous exaggeration. You of course understand that; you don't take seriously all he says?' 'I think I can distinguish between jest and earnest.'