For a moment there was silence between them again.  Then he went on:  “I can’t ask—­I don’t ask—­a word from you in answer.  Neither can I let myself say more than I am saying.  It wouldn’t be fair to you, however you might feel.  And I want you to believe this—­that not to say more takes every bit of manhood I have.”

Silence again.  Then, from the woman beside him, in the clearest, low voice, with an inflection of deep sweetness: 

“Thank you, Dr. Leaver.”

Suddenly he turned upon the bench—­he had been staring straight before him.  He bent close, looked into her shadowy face for a moment, then found her hand, where it lay in her lap, lifted it in both his own, and pressed it, for a long, tense moment, against his lips.  She felt the contact burn against the cool flesh, and it made intelligible all that he would not allow himself to say, in terms which no woman could mistake.

Then he sprang up from the bench.

“Will you walk as far as the house with me?” he asked, gently.  “Or shall I leave you here?  It is late:  I don’t quite like to leave you here alone.”

“I will go with you,” she answered, and, rising, drew her skirts about her.  He stood beside her for a moment, looking down at her white figure, outlined against the darkness behind them.  She heard him take one deep, slow inspiration, like a swimmer who fills his lungs before plunging into the water; she heard the quick release of the breath, followed by his voice, saying, with an effort at naturalness: 

“If I had such a place as this, where I’m staying, I should be tempted to bring out a blanket and sleep in it to-night.”

“One might do worse,” she answered.  “These branches have been so long untrimmed that it takes a heavy shower to dampen the ground beneath.”

They made their way back along the straggling paths, and came to the cottage, from whose windows streamed the lamplight that waited for Charlotte.  As it fell upon her Leaver looked at her, and stood still.  Pausing, she glanced up at him, and away again.  She knew that he was silently regarding her.  Quite without seeing she knew how his face looked, the fine face with the eyes which seemed to see so much, the firm yet sensitive mouth, the whole virile personality held in a powerful restraint.

Then he opened the door for her, and she passed him.  She looked back at him from the threshold.

“Good-night,” she said, and smiled.

“Good-night,” he answered, and gave back the smile.  Then he went quickly down the path and away.

Ten minutes afterward she put out the light in the front room, and stole out of the door, leaving it open behind her.  Still in the white gown of the evening, but with a long, dark cloak flung over it, she went swiftly back over the paths to the garden bench.  Arrived there she sat down upon it, where she had sat before, but not as she had been.  Instead, she turned and laid her arm along the low back of the bench, and her head upon it, and remained motionless in that position for a long time.  Her eyes were wide, in the darkness, and her lips were pressed tight together, and once, just once, a smothered, struggling breath escaped her.  But, finally, she sat up, threw up her head, lifted both arms above it, the hands clenched tight.