Dinner that evening, in view of this summons, was rather a sombre affair: it was Käthchen who, when the young men subsequently made their appearance in the drawing-room, suggested they should all go out for a stroll up to the top of the Minard road. She thought this little excursion would remove some of the prevailing constraint. Besides, it promised to be a beautiful moonlight night; and from the summit of the hill they would have a view of the wide southern seas, with the black headlands running out into the shimmering pathway of silver. Well, the expedition, so far as pictorial effects were concerned, was entirely successful; but it was not moonlight that was in Frank Meredyth’s mind. He was going away on the morrow; he did not know what might happen in his absence; and he thought his departure was a fair and reasonable excuse for his revealing to Mary Stanley certain hopes and aspirations that had gradually, and for some long time back, been taking possession of him. On their way back to the house Fred and Käthchen were walking on in front; the night was still, so that half-murmured words were enough; the surroundings lent a certain charm. And so it came about that Frank Meredyth asked Mary to become his wife. Now it cannot be said that the language in which this proposition was couched was quite in accordance with these poetical accessories of moonlit vale, and larch wood, and hill; for the average young Englishman, however honest and sincere he may be, does not express himself fluently on such occasions; probably he would be ashamed of himself if he could and did. Nevertheless, a proposal of marriage, however stumblingly and awkwardly conveyed, is a very serious thing to a young woman; and Mary, startled and frightened, had only the one immediate and overwhelming desire—to postpone the terrible necessity of giving a definite answer. For it was all too bewildering. She wanted to think. To tell the truth, Frank Meredyth’s wooing had not been too open and avowed. A man of the world in other things, in this he had been a little shy—one touch of nature among a thousand conventionalities. Then, again, was not a refusal a very cruel thing, that should be administered gently? "Oh, Mr. Meredyth," she said, in a very low and rather breathless voice, "I think—I think—this is hardly the time——" "But surely it is!" said he. "For I am going away to-morrow morning. And I don’t know when I may see you again. And I should like to take with me some little word of hope—something to remember——" "Did you see that hare?" Fred Stanley called to them, looking back for a moment. Meredyth did not pay much heed to the hare. "Perhaps I have asked you too abruptly," he went on, in the same hurried and confused undertone. "Perhaps I am asking too much—that you should say something definite all at once. Very well: I will not press for an answer—I will wait—I will wait——"