“What have you been doing all these years? Why did you never write to me?” “Because I was too proud, as you never wrote to me.” “Too proud! Pride will be your ruin; it goes before every sort of fall. Besides, I did write to you. I can show you a copy of the letter, if I haven’t torn it up.” “I never got it; did you post it yourself?” “Yes, that is I took it to the Abbey House and left it to be addressed there.” “Oh! then perhaps it is there still,” and he looked at her. “Nonsense, no one could have been so mean, not even——” He shrugged his shoulders, a trick he had learned abroad, then said: “Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it, Isobel?” “Yes, it matters a lot. Years of misunderstanding and doubt and loss, when life is so short. I might have married or all sorts of things.” “What has my not receiving your letter got to do with that?” he asked, astonished. “Nothing at all. Why do you ask such silly questions? I only meant that if I had married I should not have been here, and we should never have met again.” “Well, you are here and we have met in this church, where we parted.” “Yes, it’s odd, isn’t it? I wish it had been somewhere else. I don’t like this gloomy old place with its atmosphere of death. Come outside.” They went, and when they were through the churchyard gates walked at hazard towards the stream which ran through the grounds of Hawk’s Hall. Here they sat down upon a fallen willow, watching the swallows skim over the surface of the placid waters, and for a while were silent. They had so much to say to each other that it seemed as though scarcely they knew where to commence. “Tell me,” she said at length, “were you in the square garden on the night of that dance at which I came out? Oh! I see by your look that you were. Then why did you not speak to me instead of standing behind a bush, watching in that mean fashion?” “I wasn’t properly dressed for parties, and—and—you seemed to be—very much engaged—with a rose and a knight in armour.” “Engaged! It was only part of a game. I wrote and told you all about it in the letter you did not get. Did you never kiss a flower for a joke and give it to someone, not knowing that you were being watched?” Godfrey coloured and shifted uneasily on his log. “Well, as a matter of fact,” he said, “it is odd that you should have guessed—for something of the sort did once happen quite by accident. Also I _was_ watched.” “I!—you mean _we_. One doesn’t kiss flowers by oneself and give them to the air. It would be more ridiculous even than the other thing.” “I will tell you all about it if you like,” he stammered confusedly. She looked at him with her large, steady grey eyes, and answered in a cold voice: “No, thank you, I don’t like. Nothing bores me so much as other people’s silly love affairs.” Baffled in defence, Godfrey resorted to attack. “What has become of the knight in armour?” he asked.