Dead silence reigned for some minutes. Then Winifred said, speaking low and hurriedly: "Yes, you are right; I ought to tell you,--I know I ought; but it is so hard. Why isn't it Mr. Brady! He would understand." "Perhaps if you would explain," Flint began with unusual patience. "Well, then, it is about Tilly Marsden, who has been engaged these two years to Leonard Davitt; and now she refuses to marry him, and he thinks it is because she is in love with someone else. _Surely_ you understand _now_." "No, upon my soul, I don't. You can't mean that the little shop-girl--the maid-of-all-work at the inn--is--thinks she is in love with--" "With you; exactly." "But I have hardly spoken to her." The silence which followed implied that the situation was none the less likely on that account. The implication tinged Flint's manner with irritation. "I suppose I am very dull; but I confess I don't understand these people." "Have you ever tried to understand them?" returned Winifred, with a sudden outburst of the indignation which had long been gathering in her heart against the man before her. "Haven't you always thought of them only as they ministered to your comfort, like the other farm animals? Is it really anything to you that this narrow-minded girl has conceived a very silly, but none the less unhappy, sentiment for you?" "I--" began Flint, but the flood would have its way. "Oh, yes, it annoys you, I dare say. You feel your dignity a little touched by it; but does it move your pity, your chivalry? If it does--Oh, go away!" Flint would have given much to feel a fever heat of anger, to flame out against the audacity of the girl with an indignation overtopping her own; but he only felt himself growing more cold and rigid. He told himself that she had misunderstood him hopelessly, utterly. There was a certain aggrieved satisfaction in the thought. He had risen, and stood leaning against a tree. Winifred wondered at her own courage, as she saw him standing there stiff and haughty. "I shall go, of course," he said at length. "My absence seems to be the only sure method of producing universal content. But let me ask you one question before I go. Do you consider me to blame in this unlucky business?" Winifred parried the question by another. "Why should I tell you, when you don't care in the least what I think?" "If I did not, I should not ask you, and I think I have a right to demand an answer." "I can hardly answer you fairly. Is ice to blame for being ice and not sun? We cannot say. We only know that we are chilled. I always have the feeling that with those you consider your equals, you might be genial and responsive; but the joys and sorrows of the great world of uninteresting, commonplace people about you have no power to touch your sympathies. Of course, in a way, it is not your fault that you never noticed Tilly Marsden's manner--"