“There’s room for two on this harrow,” she said.

He made inarticulate sounds of refusal, and then came and sat down beside her, close beside her, so that he was almost touching her.  He felt a fantastic desire to take her in his arms and kiss her, and overcame the madness by an effort.  “I don’t even know your name,” he said, taking refuge from his whirling thoughts in conversation.

“Henderson,” she said.

“Miss Henderson?”

She smiled in his face—­hesitated.  “Yes—­Miss Henderson.”

Her eyes, her atmosphere were wonderful.  He had never felt quite the same sensation before, a strange excitement, almost like a faint echo of tears.  He was for demanding her Christian name.  For calling her “dear” and seeing what she would say.  He plunged headlong into a rambling description of Bonover and how he had told a lie about her and called her Miss Smith, and so escaped this unaccountable emotional crisis....

The whispering of the rain about them sank and died, and the sunlight struck vividly across the distant woods beyond Immering.  Just then they had fallen on a silence again that was full of daring thoughts for Mr. Lewisham.  He moved his arm suddenly and placed it so that it was behind her on the frame of the harrow.

“Let us go on now,” she said abruptly.  “The rain has stopped.”

“That little path goes straight to Immering,” said Mr. Lewisham.

“But, four o’clock?”

He drew out his watch, and his eyebrows went up.  It was already nearly a quarter past four.

“Is it past four?” she asked, and abruptly they were face to face with parting.  That Lewisham had to take “duty” at half-past five seemed a thing utterly trivial.  “Surely,” he said, only slowly realising what this parting meant.  “But must you?  I—­I want to talk to you.”

“Haven’t you been talking to me?”

“It isn’t that.  Besides—­no.”

She stood looking at him.  “I promised to be home by four,” she said.  “Mrs. Frobisher has tea....”

“We may never have a chance to see one another again.”

“Well?”

Lewisham suddenly turned very white.

“Don’t leave me,” he said, breaking a tense silence and with a sudden stress in his voice.  “Don’t leave me.  Stop with me yet—­for a little while....  You ...  You can lose your way.”

“You seem to think,” she said, forcing a laugh, “that I live without eating and drinking.”

“I have wanted to talk to you so much.  The first time I saw you....  At first I dared not....  I did not know you would let me talk....  And now, just as I am—­happy, you are going.”

He stopped abruptly.  Her eyes were downcast.  “No,” she said, tracing a curve with the point of her shoe.  “No.  I am not going.”

Lewisham restrained an impulse to shout.  “You will come to Immering?” he cried, and as they went along the narrow path through the wet grass, he began to tell her with simple frankness how he cared for her company, “I would not change this,” he said, casting about for an offer to reject, “for—­anything in the world....  I shall not be back for duty.  I don’t care.  I don’t care what happens so long as we have this afternoon.”