The slow days went by, and she waited for her lover to make some sign. At first she was inclined to impute his conduct to a restraining delicacy, but as time went on a horrible fear began to take hold of her aching heart. He was purposely avoiding her. She had spent her Sunday evenings at the Vicarage. Kenrick had been there, but never Cyril. She had heard Mrs. Dulcimer express her regret at the curate’s absence, heard his excuses, which seemed hardly valid--a sick parishioner to visit--letters to write. ‘I should have thought he would not like to write letters on a Sunday evening,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘It seems rather lax.’ ‘Do you think it more lax to write letters than to sit at this table and talk of worldly things--from the last village scandal to the newest fashion in bonnet crowns?’ speculated Mr. Dulcimer. Kenrick was staying at the Vicarage. Mrs. Dulcimer had pressed him hospitably to remain. There was plenty of shooting in the neighbourhood. Mr. Piper had made him free of the Park preserves, and there was good sport to be had on the moor. Altogether Kenrick felt that he might as well finish out his leave at Little Yafford. The curate worked so hard that Kenrick and he saw very little of each other, and Kenrick had not yet ventured to sound Cyril about Beatrix. It was a delicate subject, and Kenrick felt greatly puzzled by his cousin’s conduct. Could Cyril be such a fool as to give any heed to the poisonous tongues of Little Yafford? Kenrick could hardly imagine such folly, but he found it difficult to account for his cousin’s avoidance of Miss Harefield on any other ground, unless indeed it were an overstrained delicacy which held him back from pushing his suit. On the evening on which Cyril had arrived at a definite conclusion as to his line of conduct, his cousin dropped in at his lodgings, after the Vicarage tea, to smoke a friendly pipe. ‘You are not going out this evening,’ inquired Kenrick when they had shaken hands. ‘No, I have some letters to write.’ ‘Does that mean that I shall be a nuisance if I stay with you for an hour or two?’ ‘Not at all,’ answered Cyril ‘I shall be very glad to have an evening’s talk, and my letters can be written better towards midnight than earlier.’ ‘That sounds as if the letters were important.’ ‘They are important,’ said Cyril, gravely, as he closed the desk before which he had been sitting for nearly an hour in troubled thought, trying to frame his letter to Beatrix so that it should wound as little as possible. ‘What a hermit you are growing!’ said Kenrick. ‘You hardly ever come to the Vicarage now.’ ‘I have so much to do else where.’ ‘But on Sunday evenings,’ suggested Kenrick, helping himself to a pipe from the neat arrangement of meerschaums and briar-woods on the mantelpiece. ‘Surely you could spare an hour or two after evening service for social intercourse. That is always the pleasantest time at the Vicarage.’ ‘I have been engaged even on Sunday evenings.’