She looked at him with a long, searching, measuring look; a look that was, unconsciously, full of questioning; but her hands remained in his strong grasp.

“Don’t you know that I’ve always been yours?” he asked—­“that I shall always be yours even if you won’t have me—­even if I end by marrying another woman, as I daresay I shall do if you won’t have me, for I’m a lonely chap—­” And then something in her face made him add:  “Try to love me again, Betty.  I want you to say to yourself—­’a poor thing but mine own.’  Do, my dear.”

And then Betty burst out crying, and found herself clasped in his arms, strained to his heart, while his lips sought and found her soft, tremulous mouth.

He was gentle with her, gentle and strangely restrained.  And yet as the happy moments went by in that silent, sunny house, something deep in her still troubled heart told her that Radmore really loved her—­loved her as perhaps he had not loved her ten years ago, in his hot, selfish, impulsive youth.

“We needn’t tell anyone for a little while, need we?” she whispered at last.

She had shared her life, given her services to so many during the last nine years, and she longed to keep this strange new joy a secret for a while.

“If you like, we need never tell them at all,” he answered.  “We can just go out, find a church, and be married!”

“Oh, no; that wouldn’t be fair to Janet.”  And yet the notion of doing this fascinated her.

CHAPTER XXV

And meanwhile what had been going on at Old Place?  Outwardly very little, yet one long-expected, though when it happened, surprising, thing had occurred.  Also Janet, as the day went on, felt more and more worried about Jack.

He wandered in and out of the house like an unhappy, unquiet spirit, for the sudden departure of Enid Crofton for London two days before had taken him utterly by surprise, the more so that she had left no address, and he was suspicious of—­he knew not what!  It was reasonable to suppose she had gone to pay the debt for which he had provided the money; but then why keep her address in town secret from him?

At last, this morning, there had come a postcard to Rosamund, asking to be met at the station, alone, with the Old Place pony-cart.  It was a reasonable request, for the funny little vehicle only held two people and a minute quantity of luggage.  Still Jack had felt annoyed she had not asked him to meet her.  She seemed to him absurdly over-cautious.

About ten minutes before the motoring party’s return, Rosamund hurried in with a casual message that Enid was very tired, and so had gone straight to bed; that she hoped some of them would come in and see her on the morrow, Sunday.  In any case they would all meet at church.