She lifted up her head and looked at me. Such a look! Her eyes, glittering with tears as they were, expressed an almost heavenly happiness; her tender mouth was curved with rapture—her colour vivid and blushing; but as if she was afraid her face expressed too much, more than the thankfulness to me she was essaying to speak, she hid it again almost immediately. So it was all right then, and my conjecture was well-founded! I tried to remember something more to tell her of what he had said, but again she stopped me. “Don’t,” she said. She still kept her face covered and hidden. In half a minute she added, in a very low voice, “Please, Paul, I think I would rather not hear any more I don’t mean but what I have—but what I am very much obliged—Only—only, I think I would rather hear the rest from himself when he comes back.” And then she cried a little more, in quite a different way. I did not say any more, I waited for her. By-and-by she turned towards me—not meeting my eyes, however; and putting her hand in mine just as if we were two children, she said,— “We had best go back now—I don’t look as if I had been crying, do I?” “You look as if you had a bad cold,” was all the answer I made. “Oh! but I am quite well, only cold; and a good run will warm me. Come along, Paul.” So we ran, hand in hand, till, just as we were on the threshold of the house, she stopped,— “Paul, please, we won’t speak about that again.” PART IV When I went over on Easter Day I heard the chapel-gossips complimenting cousin Holman on her daughter’s blooming looks, quite forgetful of their sinister prophecies three months before. And I looked at Phillis, and did not wonder at their words. I had not seen her since the day after Christmas Day. I had left the Hope Farm only a few hours after I had told her the news which had quickened her heart into renewed life and vigour. The remembrance of our conversation in the cow-house was vividly in my mind as I looked at her when her bright healthy appearance was remarked upon. As her eyes met mine our mutual recollections flashed intelligence from one to the other. She turned away, her colour heightening as she did so. She seemed to be shy of me for the first few hours after our meeting, and I felt rather vexed with her for her conscious avoidance of me after my long absence. I had stepped a little out of my usual line in telling her what I did; not that I had received any charge of secrecy, or given even the slightest promise to Holdsworth that I would not repeat his words. But I had an uneasy feeling sometimes when I thought of what I had done in the excitement of seeing Phillis so ill and in so much trouble. I meant to have told Holdsworth when I wrote next to him; but when I had my half-finished letter before me I sate with my pen in my hand hesitating. I had more scruple in revealing what I had found out or guessed at of Phillis’s secret than in repeating to her his spoken words.