Marjorie, however, had seemed strangely uninterested in such proposals.  She had listened with patience, bowing her head in assent to each, beginning once or twice a word of criticism, and stopping herself before she had well begun.  But she had looked at Robin with more than interest; and her mother had found her more than once on her knees in her own chamber, in tears.  Yet she had said nothing, except that she would speak her mind after Easter, perhaps.

And now, it seemed, she was doing it.

* * * * *

“You have had no other thought?” she said again, “besides those of which you talked with my father?”

They were walking together through the woods, half a mile along the Hathersage valley.  Beneath them the ground fell steeply away, above them it rose as steeply to the right.  Underfoot the new life of spring was bourgeoning in mould and grass and undergrowth; for the heather did not come down so far as this; and the daffodils and celandine and wild hyacinth lay in carpets of yellow and blue, infinitely sweet, beneath the shadow of the trees and in the open sunshine. (It was at this time that the squire of Matstead was entering the church and hearing of the promises of the Lord to the sinner who forsook his sinful ways.)

“I have had other thoughts,” said the boy slowly, “but they are so wild and foolish that I have determined to think no more of them.”

“You are determined?”

He bowed his head.

“You are sure, then, that they are not from God?” asked the girl, torn between fear and hope.  He was silent; and her heart sank again.

He looked, indeed, a bewildered boy, borne down by a weight that was too heavy for his years.  He walked with his hands behind his back, his hatless head bowed, regarding his feet and the last year’s leaves on which he walked.  A cuckoo across the valley called with the insistence of one who will be answered.

“My Robin,” said the girl, “the last thing I would have you do is to tell me what you would not....  Will you not speak to the priest about it?”

“I have spoken to the priest.”

“Yes?”

“He tells me he does not know what to think.”

“Would you do this thing—­whatever it may be—­if the priest told you it was God’s will?”

There was a pause; and then: 

“I do not know,” said Robin, so low she could scarcely hear him.

She drew a deep breath to reassure herself.

“Listen!” she said.  “I must say a little of what I think; but not all.  Our Lord must finish it to you, if it is according to His will.”

He glanced at her swiftly, and down again, like a frightened child.  Yet even in that glance he could see that it was all that she could do to force herself to speak; and by that look he understood for the first time something of that which she was suffering.

“You know first,” she said, “that I am promised to you.  I hold that promise as sacred as anything on earth can be.”