A wave of sympathy swept over her expressive face, and with one of her impulsive gestures, which seemed always to convey some spiritual significance, she touched his outstretched palm with her fingers. "How full of meaning it is," she replied, "for it tells of quiet days in the fields, and of a courage that has not faltered before the thing it hates. When I look at it it makes me feel very humble--and yet very proud, too, that some day I may be your friend." He shook his head, with his eyes on the sun, which was slowly setting. "That is out of the question," he answered. "You cannot be my friend except for this single day. If I meet you to-morrow I shall not know you." "Because I am a Fletcher?" she asked, wondering. "Because you are a Fletcher, and because you would find me worse than a Fletcher." "Riddles, riddles," she protested, laughing; "and I was always dull at guessing--but I may as well warn you now that I have come home determined to make a friend of every mortal in the county, man and beast." "You'll do it," he answered seriously. "I'm the only thing about here that will resist you. You'll be everybody's friend but mine." She caught and held his gaze. "Let us see," she responded quietly. For a time they were silent, and spreading out her skirt, she made a place for the dog upon it. The noise of the heavy wheels on the rocky bed of the road grew suddenly louder in his ears, and he realised with a pang that every jolt of the cart carried him nearer the end. With the thought there came to him a wish that life might pause at the instant--that the earth might be arrested in its passage and leave him forever aware of the warm contact that thrilled through him. They had already passed Weatherby's lane, and presently the chimneys of Blake Hall appeared above the distant trees. When they reached the abandoned ice-pond Christopher spoke with an attempted carelessness. "It would perhaps be better for you to walk the rest of the way," he said. "Trouble might be made in the beginning if your grandfather were to know that I brought you over." "You're right, I think," she said, and rising as the cart stopped, she followed him down into the road. Then with a word or two of thanks, she smiled brightly, and, calling the dog, passed rapidly into the twilight which stretched between him and a single shining window that was visible in the Hall.