"I don't wish to be unjust." Mrs Aplin surveyed him with displeased, protesting eyes. "And I am sure if I had known you were such _great_ friends I wouldn't have spoken. But I know so _much_ more of them than you can possibly know." "I know only good of her," he returned quietly, and was immeasurably relieved that May should choose that moment for breaking in upon their talk, which he felt was getting altogether beyond his patience. "You look," she said, assuming a graceful pose by the head of the sofa upon which she leaned, "abnormally serious. I believe mother has been fault finding. Come and sit over here, and I'll comfort you." He laughed, and answered her jestingly; but he did not avail himself of the invitation. That was the general idea in that house, that a man must be comfortably placed, and submit to being petted. Possibly some men liked petting, but that sort of thing was not in his line. "It's getting late," he said, with an attentive eye on the clock, the big hand of which seemed to drag with such exasperating slowness. He felt grateful for the first time in their acquaintance to Mrs Aplin for silencing her daughter's protests against his leaving so soon. "Whatever did you say to him to make him so huffy?" Rosie asked when he had gone. "I always knew he had a horrid temper." "I warned him against that Upton girl. Those people are shameless in their pursuit of him. But he wouldn't hear a word. If he spends all his spare time with the girls in the cafes, I don't think it advisable to ask him out here any more." "It will be a triumph for her if she succeeds in marrying him," May opined. "Oh! he won't marry her. Men don't marry those sort of girls." As an outcome of that unfortunate talk Matheson went the following afternoon in search of Brenda. It was a cold dark day. A south-east gale was blowing, and the town was enveloped in a sticky dust that clung to the clothes and hair. Grit and small pebbles were carried by the force of the wind and stung the unprotected faces of the few pedestrians who ventured abroad in the teeth of the gale. The clouds hung dense and low upon the mountain, pouring over the rocky sides with the effect of cascades of foam tumbling over a precipice. Matheson, with his head down, buffetted against the gale, and arrived damp and rather breathless at his destination. He was early. He had timed his arrival in the hope of getting Brenda to himself. He asked for Brenda on being admitted. She came to him almost immediately, and it was manifest from her manner that his visit was unexpected. She shook hands, looked out at the lowering sky and the waving branches of the trees, and smiled. "You are brave to venture out in this," she said. "I've been lonely for a week," he replied, as though that explained everything, as perhaps it did; "an earthquake couldn't have kept me away to-day." The wind rattled the window, and flung a shower of tiny stones against the glass.