I was very
fond of some one there; we were engaged. Then my mother died and
I had to come back to look after father."
He nodded.
"Well"
"We are a long way from Norwich," she continued, quietly. "Soon
after I left, the man whom I was fond of grew lonely. He found
some one else."
"You have forgotten him?" Tavernake asked, quickly.
"I shall never forget him," she replied. "That part of life is
finished, but if ever my father can spare me, I shall go back to
my work again. Sometimes those work the best and accomplish the
most who carry the scars of a great wound."
She turned away to the house, and after that it seemed to him
that she avoided him for a time. At any rate, she made no
further attempt to win his confidence. Propinquity, however, was
too much for both of them. He was a lodger under her father's
roof. It was scarcely possible for them to keep apart.
Saturdays and Sundays they walked sometimes for miles across the
frost-bound marshes, in the quickening atmosphere of the
darkening afternoons, when the red sun sank early behind the
hills, and the twilight grew shorter every day. They watched the
sea-birds together and saw the wild duck come down to the pools;
felt the glow of exercise burn their cheeks; felt, too, that
common and nameless exultation engendered by their loneliness in
the solitude of these beautiful empty places. In the evenings
they often read together, for Nicholls, although no drinker,
never missed his hour or so at the village inn.
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