’He was such a quarrelsome fellow.  He flew at me just because I said we had good hunting down in Norfolk.’

‘We need not talk about all that, Will.’

‘No of course not.  It’s all passed and gone, I suppose.’

’Yes it is all passed and gone.  You did not know my Aunt Winterfield, or you would understand my first reason for liking him.’

‘No,’ said Will; ‘I never saw her.’

Then they walked on together for a while without speaking, and Clara was beginning to feel some relief some relief at first; but as the relief came, there came back to her the dead, dull, feeling of heaviness at her heart which had oppressed her after his visit in the morning.  She had been right, and Mrs Askerton had been wrong.  He had returned to her simply as her cousin, and now he was walking with her and talking to her in this strain, to teach her that it was so.  But of a sudden they came to a place where two paths diverged, and he turned upon her and asked her quickly which path they should take.  ’Look, Clara,’ he said, ‘will you go up there with me?’ It did not need that she should look, as she knew that the way indicated by him led up among the rocks.

‘I don’t much care which way,’ she said, faintly.

’Do you not?  But I do.  I care very much.  Don’t you remember where that path goes?’ She had no answer to give to this.  She remembered well, and remembered how he had protested that he would never go to the place again unless he could go there as her accepted lover.  And she had asked herself sundry questions as to that protestation.  Could it be that for her sake he would abstain from visiting the prettiest spot on his estate that he would continue to regard the ground as hallowed because of his memories of her?  ‘Which way shall we go?’ he asked.

‘I suppose it does not much signify,’ said she, trembling.

’But it does signify.  It signifies very much to me.  Will you go up to the rocks?’

‘I am afraid we shall be late, if we stay out long.’

‘What matters how late?  Will you come?’

‘I suppose so if you wish it, Will.’

She had anticipated that the high rock was to be the altar at which the victim was to be sacrificed; but now he would not wait till he had taken her to the sacred spot.  He had of course intended that he would there renew his offer; but he had perceived that his offer had been renewed, and had, in fact, been accepted, during this little parley as to the pathway.  There was hardly any necessity for further words.  So he must have thought; for, as quick as lightning, he flung his arms around her, and kissed her again, as he had kissed her on that other terrible occasion that occasion on which he had felt that he might hardly hope for pardon.

‘William, William,’ she said; ‘how can you serve me like that?’ But he had a full understanding as to his own privileges, and was well aware that he was in the right now, as he had been before that he was trespassing egregiously.  ‘Why are you so rough with me?’ she said.