Then his eyes spoke the compliment over again, and the thrill started anew in her heart, till her cheeks grew quite rosy, and she buried her face in the coolness of the tiny flowers to hide her confusion. “It was very true,” he said in a low, lover-like voice that sounded like a caress. “Oughtn’t we to hurry on to catch our train?” said Celia, suddenly springing to her feet. “I’m quite rested now.” She felt if she stayed there another moment she would yield to the spell he had cast upon her. With a dull thud of consciousness the man got himself to his feet and reminded himself that this was another man’s promised wife to whom he had been letting his soul go out. “Don’t let anything hinder you! Don’t let anything hinder you!” suddenly babbled out the little brook, and he gathered up his suit-cases and started on. “I am going to carry my suit-case,” declared a very decided voice behind him, and a small hand seized hold of its handle. “I beg your pardon, you are not!” declared Gordon in a much more determined voice. “But they are too heavy for you--both of them--and the umbrella too,” she protested. “Give me the umbrella then.” But he would not give her even the umbrella, rejoicing in his strength to shield her and bear her burdens. As she walked beside him, she remembered vividly a morning when George Hayne had made her carry two heavy baskets, that his hands might be free to shoot birds. Could this be the same George Hayne? Altogether, it was a happy walk, and far shorter than either had expected it to be, though Gordon worried not a little about his frail companion before they came to the outskirts of the village, and kept begging her to sit down and rest again, but she would not. She was quite eager and excited about the strange village to which they were coming. Its outlying farm-houses were all so clean and white, with green blinds folded placidly over their front windows, and only their back doors astir. The cows all looked peaceful, and the dogs all seemed friendly. They walked up the village street, shaded in patches with flecks of sunshine through the young leaves. If anyone had told Celia Hathaway the night before that she would have walked and talked thus to-day with her bridegroom she would have laughed him to scorn. But now all unconsciously she had drifted into an attitude of friendliness with the man whom she had thought to hate all the rest of her life.