"I'm not in doubt. I wouldn't have given myself all the hateful grief of doing it, nor yet him, if I hadn't made up my mind. I kept my mouth shut so long as there was a shadow of doubt--and long after there was no doubt for that matter. And you can tell 'em so at Falcon Farm, or anywhere." "Then I'll be very pleased to take a walk any Sunday if you've a mind to." "Sunday week then, if I don't find work before. I'll meet you--where?" He considered. "If 'tis fair and offering a fine afternoon, I'll be--but that's too far. If we're going to Hey Tor Rock, it's a long way for you anyhow." "How if I was to come to dinner at Falcon Farm first?" she asked, and he approved the suggestion. "A very good thought, then we can start from there." "Sure you don't mind?" "Proud." They parted then and Dinah, cheered by the incident of this meeting, went on her way. She liked Maynard, not for himself, but his attitude to life. Yet, had he been other than himself, she had probably not found him interesting. He was always the same--polite and delicate minded. Such qualities in an elderly man had left her indifferent; but, as she once said to him, the young turn to the young. Maynard was still young enough to understand youth, and it seemed to Dinah that he had understood her very well. She was grateful to him for promising to take the walk. He would be sure to say sensible things and help her. And she wanted to tell him more about her own feelings. Life had unsettled her, and she was learning painful rather than pleasant facts about it. She began dimly to fear there must be more painful than pleasant facts to learn. Several desires struggled with her--the first to see Johnny again and be forgiven and resume a friendly relation, if that were possible. His sustained anger she could not comprehend; and if, as she began to hear, her old lover still hoped to make it up, the puzzle became still greater. She reached Falcon Farm with two determinations: to talk to Johnny and declare that she could never change again; and to ask herself to dinner, for the sake of the walk with Lawrence Maynard. To make any mystery of the walk had not occurred to her, or him. She did not even think that anybody might put any particular interpretation upon it. When she reached the farm on the hill, Joe Stockman and Thomas Palk had been for an hour in conversation. It was an evening when in good heart and more than usually amiable, Joe had offered his horseman a "spot of whisky" from his own bottle, and Thomas, accepting it, had cautiously entered upon a little matter for some time in his mind. Susan sat at the table mending her father's socks, while the men were by the hearth, for the kitchen fire never went out at Falcon Farm and Joe always found it agreeable after sun-down, even in high summer.