When he took his leave, Roberta went with him to the stile.  As they walked together across the smooth, short grass, a new set of emotions arose in Lawrence’s mind which drove out every other.  They were grief, chagrin, and even rage, at not having won this woman.  As to actual speech, there was nothing he could say, although his soul boiled and bubbled within him in his desire to speak.  But if he had anything to say, now was his chance, for he had told them that he would proceed with his journey the next day.

Miss Roberta had a way of looking up, and looking down at the same time, particularly when she had asked a question and was waiting for the answer.  Her face would be turned a little down, but her eyes would look up and give a very charming expression to those upturned eyes; and if she happened to allow the smile, with which she ceased speaking, to remain upon her pretty lips, she generally had an answer of some sort very soon.  If for no other reason, it would be given that she might ask another question.  It was in this manner she said to Lawrence:  “Do you really go away from us to-morrow?”

“Yes,” said he, “I shall push on.”

“Do you not find the country very beautiful at this season?” asked Miss Roberta, after a few steps in silence.

“I don’t like autumn,” answered Lawrence.  “Everything is drying up and dying.  I would rather see things dead.”

Roberta looked at him without turning her head.  “But it will be just as bad in North Carolina,” she said.

“There is an autumn in ourselves,” he answered, “just as much as there is in Nature.  I won’t see so much of that down there.”

“In some cases,” said Roberta, slowly, “autumn is impossible.”

They had reached the bottom of the steps, and Lawrence turned and looked toward her.  “Do you mean,” he asked, “when there has been no real summer?”

Roberta laughed.  “Of course,” said she, “if there has been no summer there can be no autumn.  But you know there are places where it is summer all the time.  Would you like to live in such a clime?”

Lawrence Croft put one foot on the step, and then he drew it back.  “Miss March,” said he, “my train does not leave until the afternoon, and I am coming over here in the morning to have one more walk in the woods with you.  May I?”

“Certainly,” she said, “I shall be delighted; that is, if you can overlook the fact that it is autumn.”

When Miss Roberta returned to the house she found Junius Keswick sitting on a bench on the porch.  She went over to him, and took a seat at the other end of the bench.

“So your gentleman is gone,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered, “but only for the present.  He is coming back in the morning.”

“What for?” asked Keswick, a little abruptly.

Miss Roberta took off her hat, for there was no need of a hat on a shaded porch, and holding it by the ribbons, she let it gently slide down toward her feet.  “He is coming,” she said, speaking rather slowly, “to take a walk with me, and I know very well that when we have reached some place where he is sure there is no one to hear him, he is going to tell me that he loves me; that he did not intend to speak quite so soon, but that circumstances have made it impossible for him to restrain himself any longer, and he will ask me to be his wife.”