The colonel was using his eyes with an increasing suavity that threatened more than sweetness.

“I believe you have been sincerely kind,” said Clara.  “We will descend to the path round the lake.”

She did not refuse her hand on the descent, and he let it escape the moment the service was done.  As he was performing the admirable character of the man of honour, he had to attend to the observance of details; and sure of her though he was beginning to feel, there was a touch of the unknown in Clara Middleton which made him fear to stamp assurance; despite a barely resistible impulse, coming of his emotions and approved by his maxims.  He looked at the hand, now a free lady’s hand.  Willoughby settled, his chance was great.  Who else was in the way?  No one.  He counselled himself to wait for her; she might have ideas of delicacy.  Her face was troubled, speculative; the brows clouded, the lips compressed.

“You have not heard this from Miss Dale?” she said.

“Last night they were together:  this morning she fled.  I saw her this morning distressed.  She is unwilling to send you a message:  she talks vaguely of meeting you some days hence.  And it is not the first time he has gone to her for his consolation.”

“That is not a proposal,” Clara reflected.  “He is too prudent.  He did not propose to her at the time you mention.  Have you not been hasty, Colonel De Craye?”

Shadows crossed her forehead.  She glanced in the direction of the house and stopped her walk.

“Last night, Miss Middleton, there was a listener.”

“Who?”

“Crossjay was under that pretty silk coverlet worked by the Miss Patternes.  He came home late, found his door locked, and dashed downstairs into the drawing-room, where he snuggled up and dropped asleep.  The two speakers woke him; they frightened the poor dear lad in his love for you, and after they had gone, he wanted to run out of the house, and I met him just after I had come back from my search, bursting, and took him to my room, and laid him on the sofa, and abused him for not lying quiet.  He was restless as a fish on a bank.  When I woke in the morning he was off.  Doctor Corney came across him somewhere on the road and drove him to the cottage.  I was ringing the bell.  Corney told me the boy had you on his brain, and was miserable, so Crossjay and I had a talk.”

“Crossjay did not repeat to you the conversation he had heard?” said Clara.

“No.”

She smiled rejoicingly, proud of the boy, as she walked on.

“But you’ll pardon me, Miss Middleton—­and I’m for him as much as you are—­if I was guilty of a little angling.”

“My sympathies are with the fish.”

“The poor fellow had a secret that hurt him.  It rose to the surface crying to be hooked, and I spared him twice or thrice, because he had a sort of holy sentiment I respected, that none but Mr. Whitford ought to be his father confessor.”