So they sat there silent, she thinking and he waiting upon her thought.

She sighed again and turned to him her troubled eyes.

“My Robin,” she said, “I have been thinking so much about you, and I have feared sometimes—­”

She stopped herself, and he looked for her to finish.  She drew her hand away and stood up.

“Oh! it is miserable!” she cried.  “And all might have been so happy.”

The tears suddenly filled her eyes so that they shone like flowers in dew.

He stood up, too, and put his muddy arm about her shoulders. (She felt so slight and slender.)

“It will be happy,” he said.  “What have you been fearing?”

She shook her head and the tears ran down.

“I cannot tell you yet....  Robin, what a holy man that travelling priest must be, who said mass on Sunday.”

The lad was bewildered at her swift changes of thought, for he did not yet see the chain on which they hung.  He strove to follow her.

“It seemed so to me too,” he said.  “I think I have never seen—­”

“It seemed so to you too,” she cried.  “Why, what do you know of him?”

He was amazed at her vehemence.  She had drawn herself clear of his arm and was looking at him full in the face.

“I met him on the moor,” he said.  “I had some talk with him.  I got his blessing.”

“You got his blessing!  Why, so did I, after the mass, when you were gone.”

“Then that should join us more closely than ever,” he said.

“In Heaven, perhaps, but on earth—­” She checked herself again.  “Tell me what you thought of him, Robin.”

“I thought it was strange that such a man as that should live such a rough life.  If he were in the seminary now, safe at Douay—­”

She seemed a shade paler, but her eyes did not flicker.

“Yes,” she said.  “And you thought—?”

“I thought that it was not that kind of man who should fare so hardly.  If it were a man like John Merton, who is accustomed to such things, or a man like me—­”

Again he stopped; he did not know why.  But it was as if she had cried out, though she neither spoke nor moved.

“You thought that, did you, Robin?” she said presently, never moving her eyes from his face.  “I thought so, too.”

“But I do not know why we are talking about Mr. Simpson,” said the lad.  “There are other affairs more pressing.”

“I am not sure,” said she.

“Marjorie, my love, what are you thinking about?”

She had turned her eyes and was looking out through the little window.  Outside the red sunlight still lay on the crags and slopes beyond the deep valley beneath them, and her face was bright in the reflected brightness.  Yet he thought he had never seen her look so serious.  She turned her eyes back to him as he spoke.

“I am thinking of a great many things,” she said.  “I am thinking of the Faith and of sorrow and of love.”