“You’re neither to see him nor speak to him nor listen to him! There’s to be an end of it. Now, are you going to obey me, girl?” She looked as if butter would not melt in her mouth. “Yes, sir,” she answered meekly. “I shall obey you if those are your orders.” He was surprised by the readiness of her assent, and he looked at her suspiciously. “Umph!” he grunted. “That sounds well, and it will be well for you, girl, if you keep to it. For I mean it. Let there be no mistake about that.” “I shall do as you wish, of course, sir.” “He’s behaved badly, d—d badly! But if you are sensible I’ll say no more. Only understand me, you’ve got to give him up.” “Yes, sir.” “From this day? Now, do you understand?” “Yes, sir.” After that he had no more to say. He required obedience, and he should have been glad to receive it. But, to tell the truth, he was a little at a loss. Girls were silly—such was his creed—and it behoved them to be guided by their elders. If they did not suffer themselves to be guided, they must be brought into line sharply. But somewhere, far down in the old man’s heart, and unacknowledged even by himself, lay an odd feeling—a feeling of something like disappointment. In his young days girls had not been so ready, so very ready, to surrender their lovers. He had even known them to fight for them. He was perplexed. CHAPTER X They were standing on the narrow strip of sward between the wood and the stream, which the gun accident had for ever made memorable to them. The stile rose between them, but seeing that his hands rested on hers, and his eyes dwelt unrebuked on her conscious face, the barrier was but as the equator, which divides but does not separate; the sacrifice to propriety was less than it seemed. Spring had come with a rush, the hedges were everywhere bursting into leaf. In the Thirty Acres which climbed the hill above them, the thrushes were singing their May-day song, and beside them the brook rippled and sparkled in the sunshine. All Nature rejoiced, and the pulse of youth leapt to the universal rhythm. The maiden’s eyes repeated what the man’s lips uttered, and for the time to love and to be loved was all in all. “To think,” he murmured, “that if I had not been so awkward we should not have known one another!” And, silly man, he thought this the height of wisdom. “And the snowdrops!” She, alas, was on the same plane of sapience. “But when—when did you first, Clem?” “From the first moment we met! From the very first, Jos!” “When I saw you standing here? And looking——” “Oh, from long before that!” he declared. And his eyes challenged denial. “From the hour when I saw you at the Race Ball in the Assembly Room—ages, ages ago!” She savored the thought and found it delicious, and she longed to hear it repeated. “But you did not know me then. How could you—love me?”