He moved quickly to meet her.  For a moment their hands met.  Then she drew away.

“How good of you, Cicely,” he cried.  “I felt that I must talk to some one or go mad.”

She stood for a moment recovering her breath—­her bosom rising and falling quickly under her dark gown, a pink flush in her cheeks.  Her hair, fair and inclined to curliness, had escaped bounds a little, and she brushed it impatiently back.

“I must only stay for a moment, Douglas,” she said, gravely.  “Let us go down the hill by the Beacon.  We shall be on the way home.”

They walked side by side in silence.  Neither of them were wholly at their ease.  A new element had entered into their intercourse.  The wonderfully free spirit of comradeship which had sprung up between them since her coming, and which had been so sweet a thing to him, was for the moment, at least, interrupted.

“I want you to tell me, Douglas,” she said at last, “exactly how much of a surprise to-day has been to you.”

“It is easily done,” he answered.  “Last night I went to your father.  I tried to thank him as well as I was able for all that he has done for me.  I then told him that with every respect for his wishes I did not feel myself prepared at present to enter the ministry.  I showed him my diplomas and told him of my degrees.  I told him what I wished—­to become a schoolmaster, for a year or two, at any rate.  Well, he listened to me in fixed silence.  When I had finished he asked, ’Is that all?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ and he turned his back upon me.  ’Your future is already provided for, Douglas,’ he said.  ’I will speak to you of it to-morrow.’  Then he walked away.  That is all the warning I had.”

“And what about Joan?”

His face flushed hotly.

“No word from him, nor any hint of such a thing has ever made me think of Joan in such a connection.  I should have been less surprised if the ceiling had fallen in upon us.”

She looked at him and nodded gravely.

“Well,” she said, “our oracle has spoken.  What are you going to do?”

“I am going to ask for your advice first,” he said.

“Then you must tell me just how you feel,” she said.

He drew a long breath.

“There are so many things,” he said, speaking softly and half to himself.  “Last week, Cicely, I took a compass and a stick and I walked across the hills to Rydal Mount, where Wordsworth lived.  When I came back I think that I was quite content to spend all my days here.  It is such a beautiful world.  Some day when you have lived here longer, you will know what I mean—­the bondage will fall upon you, too.  The mountains with their tops hidden in soft blue mist, the winds blowing across the waste places, the wild flowers springing up in unexpected corners, the little streams tearing down the hillside to flow smoothly like a belt of beautiful ribbon through the pasture land below.  The love