“I beg your pardon,” he said, snubbed.  “I thought—­Don’t you think it dangerous to sit on that damp wall?”

“It is not damp.  It is crumbling into dust with dryness.”  An unnatural laugh, with which she concluded, intensified his uneasiness.

He began a sentence, stopped, and to gain time to recover himself, placed his bicycle in the opposite ditch; a proceeding which she witnessed with impatience, as it indicated his intention to stay and talk.  She, however, was the first to speak; and she did so with a callousness that shocked him.

“Have you heard the news?”

“What news?”

“About Mr. Trefusis and Agatha.  They are engaged.”

“So Trefusis told me.  I met him just now in the village.  I was very glad to hear it.”

“Of course.”

“But I had a special reason for being glad.”

“Indeed?”

“I was desperately afraid, before he told me the truth, that he had other views—­views that might have proved fatal to my dearest hopes.”

Gertrude frowned at him, and the frown roused him to brave her.  He lost his self-command, already shaken by her strange behavior.  “You know that I love you, Miss Lindsay,” he said.  “It may not be a perfect love, but, humanly speaking, it is a true one.  I almost told you so that day when we were in the billiard room together; and I did a very dishonorable thing the same evening.  When you were speaking to Trefusis in the avenue I was close to you, and I listened.”

“Then you heard him,” cried Gertrude vehemently.  “You heard him swear that he was in earnest.”

“Yes,” said Erskine, trembling, “and I thought he meant in earnest in loving you.  You can hardly blame me for that:  I was in love myself; and love is blind and jealous.  I never hoped again until he told me that he was to be married to Miss Wylie.  May I speak to you, now that I know I was mistaken, or that you have changed your mind?”

“Or that he has changed his mind,” said Gertrude scornfully.

Erskine, with a new anxiety for her sake, checked himself.  Her dignity was dear to him, and he saw that her disappointment had made her reckless of it.  “Do not say anything to me now, Miss Lindsay, lest—­”

“What have I said?  What have I to say?”

“Nothing, except on my own affairs.  I love you dearly.”

She made an impatient movement, as if that were a very insignificant matter.

“You believe me, I hope,” he said, timidly.

Gertrude made an effort to recover her habitual ladylike reserve, but her energy failed before she had done more than raise her head.  She relapsed into her listless attitude, and made a faint gesture of intolerance.

“You cannot be quite indifferent to being loved,” he said, becoming more nervous and more urgent.  “Your existence constitutes all my happiness.  I offer you my services and devotion.  I do not ask any reward.” (He was now speaking very quickly and almost inaudibly.) “You may accept my love without returning it.  I do not want—­seek to make a bargain.  If you need a friend you may be able to rely on me more confidently because you know I love you.”