Easily—­oh, how easily!—­could Fortune have answered this—­have told him that, whether he wished it or not, two did really bear his burdens, and perhaps the one who bore it secretly and silently had not the lightest share.  But she did not speak:  it was not possible.

“How shall I hear of you Miss Williams?” he said, after a long silence.  “You are not likely to leave the Dalziel family?”

“No,” she answered; “and if I did, I could always be heard of, the Dalziels are so well known hereabouts.  Still, a poor wandering governess easily drops out of people’s memory.”

“And a poor wandering tutor too.  But I am not a tutor any more, and I hope I shall not be poor long.  Friends can not lose one another; such friends as you and I have been.  I will take care we shall not do it, that is, if—­but never mind that.  You have been very good to me, and I have often bothered you very much, I fear.  You will be almost glad to get rid of me.”

She might have turned upon him eyes swimming with tears—­woman’s tears—­that engine of power which they say no man can ever resist; but I think, if so, a woman like Fortune would have scorned to use it.  Those poor weary eyes, which could weep oceans alone under the stars, were perfectly dry now—­dry and fastened on the ground, as she replied, in a grave steady voice,

“You do not believe that, else you would never have said it.”

Her composure must have surprised him, for he looked suddenly up, then begged her pardon.  “I did not hurt you, surely?  We must not part with the least shadow of unkindness between us.”

“No.”  She offered her hand, and he took it—­gently, affectionately, but only affectionately.  The one step beyond affection, which leads into another world, another life, he seemed determined not to pass.

For at least half an hour he sat there with David on his knee, or rising up restlessly to pace the room with David on his shoulder; but apparently not desiring the child’s absence, rather wishing to keep him as a sort of barrier.  Against what?—­himself?  And so minute after minute slipped by; and Miss Williams, sitting in her place by the window, already saw, dotting the Links, group after group of the afternoon church-goers wandering quietly home—­so quietly, so happily, fathers and mothers and children, companions and friends—­for whom was no parting and no pain.

Mr. Roy suddenly took out his watch.  “I must go now; I see I have spent all but my last five minutes.  Good-by, David, my lad; you’ll be a big man, maybe, when I see you again.  Miss Williams” (standing before her with an expression on his face such as she had never seen before), “before I go there was a question I had determined to ask you—­a purely ethical question which a friend of mine has been putting to me, and I could not answer; that is, I could from the man’s side, the worldly side.  A woman might think differently.”