Chris sobbed herself to the end of her tears; and the man took his trial—­like a man.  His only thought was the sadness his blunder had brought with it for her.  To misread her blush seemed in his humility a crime.  His consistent unselfishness blinded him, for an instant at least, to his own grief.  He blamed himself and asked pardon and prepared to get away out of her sight as soon as possible.

“Forgive me, Chris—­I needn’t ask you twice, I know—­such a stupid thing—­I didn’t understand—­I never observed:  but more shame to me.  I ought to have seen, of course.  Anybody else would—­any man of proper feeling.”

“How could ’e see it with a secret chap like him?  He ought to have told ‘e; I bid un speak months since; an’ I thought he had; an’ I hate un for not doing it!”

“But you mustn’t.  Don’t cry any more, and forget all about it.  I could almost laugh to think how blind I’ve been.  We’ll both laugh next time we meet.  If you’re happy, then I’ll laugh always.  That’s all I care for.  Now I know you’re happy again, I’m happy, too, Chris—­honour bright.  And I’ll be a friend still—­remember that—­always—­to you—­to you and him.”

“I hate un, I say.”

“Why, he didn’t give me credit for being such a bat—­such a mole.  Now I must be away.  We’ll meet pretty soon, I expect.  Just forget this afternoon as though it had never been, even though it’s such a jolly sunny one.  And remember me as a friend—­a friend still for all my foolishness.  Good-by for the present.  Good-by.”

He nodded, making the parting a slight thing and not missing the ludicrous in his anxiety to spare her pain.  He went down the valley, leaving her sitting alone.  He assumed a jaunty air and did not look round, but hastened off to the stile.  Never in his most light-hearted moments had he walked thus or struck right and left at the leaves and shrubs with such a clumsy affectation of nonchalance.  Thus he played the fool until out of sight; then his head came down, and his feet dragged, and his walk and mien grew years older than his age.  He stopped presently and stood still, staring upon the silence.  Westering sunlight winnowed through the underwood, splashed into its sombre depths and brightened the sobriety of a grey carpet dotted with dead cones.  Sweet scents floated downward upon the sad whisper that lives in every pine forest; then came suddenly a crisp rattle of little claws and a tiny barking, where two red squirrels made love, high aloft, amid the grey lichens and emerald haze of a great larch that gleamed like a green lamp through the night of the dark surrounding foliage.