She watched him with an unwonted tugging at her heart as he stood for a long time by the edge of the railing, gazing over the tree-tops of the valley towards the distant hazy hills.  Nor did she understand what it was in him that now, on this day of days when she had definitely cast the die of life, when she had chosen her path, aroused this strange emotion.  Why had she never felt it before?  She had thought his face homely—­now it seemed to shine with a transfiguring light.  She recalled, with a pang, that she had criticised his clothes:  to-day they seemed the expression of the man himself.  Incredible is the range of human emotion!  She felt a longing to throw herself into his arms, and to weep there.

He turned at length from the view.

“How wonderful!” he said.

“I didn’t know—­you cared for nature so much, Peter.”

He looked at her strangely and put out his hand and drew her, unresisting, to the bench beside him.

“Are you in trouble, Honora?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” she cried, “oh, no, I am—­very happy.”

“You may have thought it odd that I should have come here without knowing Mrs. Holt,” he said gravely, “particularly when you were going home so soon.  I do not know myself why I came.  I am a matter-of-fact person, but I acted on an impulse.”

“An impulse!” she faltered, avoiding the troubled, searching look in his eyes.

“Yes,” he said, “an impulse.  I can call it by no other name.  I should have taken a train that leaves New York at noon; but I had a feeling this morning, which seemed almost like a presentiment, that I might be of some use to you.”

“This morning?” She felt herself trembling, and she scarcely recognized Peter with such words on his lips.  “I am happy—­indeed I am.  Only—­I am overwrought—­seeing you again—­and you made me think of home.”

“It was no doubt very foolish of me,” he declared.  “And if my coming has upset you—­”

“Oh, no,” she cried.  “Please don’t think so.  It has given me a sense of—­of security.  That you were ready to help me if—­if I needed you.”

“You should always have known that,” he replied.  He rose and stood gazing off down the valley once more, and she watched him with her heart beating, with a sense of an impending crisis which she seemed powerless to stave off.  And presently he turned to her, “Honora, I have loved you for many years,” he said.  “You were too young for me to speak of it.  I did not intend to speak of it when I came here to-day.  For many years I have hoped that some day you might be my wife.  My one fear has been that I might lose you.  Perhaps—­perhaps it has been a dream.  But I am willing to wait, should you wish to see more of the world.  You are young yet, and I am offering myself for all time.  There is no other woman for me, and never can be.”

He paused and smiled down at her.  But she did not speak.  She could not.