That afternoon, however, he made a resolution to speak to Sophia before another twenty-four hours had passed—­a resolution which was truly natural in its inconsistency; for, after having waited for months to hear Alec’s purpose, he to-day decided to act without reference to him.  At the thought of the renewed solicitation of another lover, his own love and manliness triumphed over everything else.  He would tell her fully and frankly all that had made him hesitate so long, and of his long admiration for her, and how dearly he now loved her.  He would not urge her; he would, leave the choice to her.  This resolution was not made by any impulsive yielding to a storm of feeling, nor in the calm of determined meditation; he simply made up his mind in the course of that afternoon’s occupation.

CHAPTER XVII.

Trenholme went from Mrs. Rexford’s door that same day to pay some visits of duty in the village.  The afternoon was warm, and exquisitely bright with the sort of dazzling brightness that sometimes presages rain.  On his return he met a certain good man who was the Presbyterian minister of the place.  The Scotch church had a larger following in Chellaston than the English.  The clergyman and the minister were friends of a sort, a friendship which was cultivated on chance occasions as much from the desire to exercise and display large-mindedness as from the drawings of personal sympathy.  The meeting this afternoon led to their walking out of the village together; and when the Scotchman had strolled as far as the college gate, Trenholme, out of courtesy and interest in the conversation, walked a mile further up the road with him.

Very beautiful was the road on that bright summer day.  They heard the ripple of the river faintly where it was separated from them by the Harmon garden and the old cemetery.  Further on, the sound of the water came nearer, for there was only the wilderness of half overgrown pasture and sumac trees between them and it.  Then, where the river curved, they came by its bank, road and river-side meeting in a grove of majestic pines.  The ground here was soft and fragrant with the pine needles of half a century; the blue water curled with shadowed wave against matted roots; the swaying firmament was of lofty branches, and the summer wind touched into harmony a million tiny harps.  Minds that were not choked with their own activities would surely here have received impressions of beauty; but these two men were engaged in important conversation, and they only gave impassive heed to a scene to which they were well accustomed.