After he had put the question, the reply to which meant so much to him, Will's eyes, avoiding Bertha, turned to the window. Though there wanted still a couple of hours to sunset, a sky overcast was already dusking the little parlour. Distant bells made summons to evening service, and footfalls sounded in the otherwise silent street. "It's a question," he resumed, "which has troubled me for a long time. Do you remember--when was it? A year ago?--going one Sunday with Mrs. Cross to Kew?" "I remember it very well." "I happened to be at Kew that day," Will continued, still nervously. "You passed me as I stood on the bridge. I saw you go into the Gardens, and I said to myself how pleasant it would be if I could have ventured to join you in your walk. You knew me--as your grocer. For me to have approached and spoken, would have been an outrage. That day I had villainous thoughts." Bertha raised her eyes; just raised them till they met his, then bent her head again. "We thought your name was really Jollyman," she said, in a half-apologetic tone. "Of course you did. A good invention, by the bye, that name, wasn't it?" "Very good indeed," she answered, smiling. "And you used to come to the shop." pursued Will. "And I looked forward to it. There was something human in your way of talking to me." "I hope so." "Yes, but--it made me ask myself that question. I comforted myself by saying that of course the shop was only a temporary expedient; I should get out of it; I should find another way of making money; but, you see, I'm as far from that as ever; and if I decide to go on shopkeeping--don't I condemn myself to solitude?" "It _is_ a difficulty," said Bertha, in the tone of one who lightly ponders an abstract question. "Now and then, some time ago, I half persuaded myself that, even though a difficulty, it needn't be a fatal one." He was speaking now with his eyes steadily fixed upon her; "but that was when you still came to the shop. Suddenly you ceased--" His voice dropped. In the silence, Bertha uttered a little "Yes." "I have been wondering what that meant--" His speech was a mere parched gasp. Bertha looked at him, and her eyebrows contracted, as if in sympathetic trouble. Gently she asked: "No explanation occurred to you?" With a convulsive movement, Will changed his position, and by so doing seemed to have released his tongue. "Several," he said, with a strange smile. "The one which most plagued me, I should very likely do better to keep to myself; but I won't; you shall know it. Perhaps you are prepared for it. Do you know that I went abroad last summer?" "I heard of it." "From Miss Elvan?" "From Mrs. Franks." "Mrs. Franks--yes. She told you, then, that I had been to St. Jean de Luz? She told you that I had seen her sister?" "Yes," replied Bertha, and added quickly. "You had long wished to see that part of France."