As she drew nearer to where Mr. Quincunx lived, her burdened mind sought relief in focussing itself upon him. She would be sure to find him in his garden. That she knew, because the day was Saturday. Should she tell him what had happened to her? Ah! that was indeed the crucial question! Was it necessary that she should sacrifice herself for him without his even knowing what she did? But he would have to know, sooner or later, of this marriage. Everyone would be talking of it. It would be bound to come to his ears. And what would he think of her if she said nothing? What would he think of her, in any case, having accepted such a degradation? Not to tell him at all, would throw a completely false light upon the whole transaction. It would make her appear treacherous, fickle, worldly-minded, shameless--wickedly false to her unwritten covenant with himself. To tell him, without giving him the true motive of her sacrifice, would be, she felt sure, to bring down his bitterest reproaches on her head. For a passing second she felt a wave of indignation against him surge up in her heart. This, however, she passionately suppressed, with the instinctive desire of a woman who is sacrificing herself to feel the object of such sacrifice worthy of what is offered. It was not long before she reached the gate of Mr. Quincunx’s garden. Yes,--there he was--with his wheel-barrow and his hoe--bending over his potatoes. She opened the gate and walked quite close up to him before he observed her. He greeted her in his usual manner, with a smile of half-cynical, half-affectionate welcome, and taking her by the hand as he might have taken a child, he led her to the one shady spot in his garden, where, under a weeping ash, he had constructed a rough bench. “I didn’t expect you,” he said, when they were seated. “I never do expect you. People like me who have only Saturday afternoons to enjoy themselves in don’t expect visitors. They count the hours which are left to them before the night comes.” “But you have Sunday, my friend,” she said, laying her hand upon his. “Sunday!” Mr. Quincunx muttered. “Do you call Sunday a day? I regard Sunday as a sort of prison-exercise, when all the convicts go walking up and down and showing off their best clothes. I can neither work nor read nor think on Sunday. I have to put on my best clothes like the rest, and stand at my gate, staring at the weather and wondering what the hay-crop will be. The only interesting moments I have on Sunday are when that silly-faced Wone, or one of the Andersens, drifts this way, and we lean over my wall and abuse the gentry.” “Poor dear!” said the girl pityingly. “I expect the real truth is that you are so tired with your work all the week, that you are glad enough to rest and do nothing.”