He had risen from his seat by the time she turned to go out, and he intercepted her timorously.

“Kathie, give me a kiss before you go,” he whispered, hoarsely.  “I—­I don’t often bother you.”

She drew her breath in deeply as he put his arms clumsily about her; but she stood still, and he kissed her on the forehead, and touched the little wavy curls that strayed across it gently with his big, trembling fingers.

When he released her, she moved at once impetuously to the open doorway.  On the threshold she hesitated, paused a moment irresolutely, and then turned back.

“Shall I—­does your pipe want filling, John?” she asked, softly.

“No, thank you, my dear.”

“Would you like me to stay, read to you, or anything?”

He looked up at her wistfully.  “N-no, thank you; I’m not much of a reader, you know, my dear—­somehow.”

She hated herself for knowing that there would be a “my dear,” probably a “somehow,” in his reply, and despised herself for the sense of irritated impatience she felt by anticipation, even before the words were uttered.

There was a moment’s hesitating silence, broken by the sound of quick, firm footsteps without.  Broomhurst paused at the entrance, and looked into the tent.

“Aren’t you coming, Drayton?” he asked, looking first at Drayton’s wife and then swiftly putting in his name with a scarcely perceptible pause.  “Too lazy?  But you, Mrs. Drayton?”

“Yes, I’m coming,” she said.

They left the tent together, and walked some few steps in silence.

Broomhurst shot a quick glance at his companion’s face.

“Anything wrong?” he asked, presently.

Though the words were ordinary enough, the voice in which they were spoken was in some subtle fashion a different voice from that in which he had talked to her nearly two months ago, though it would have required a keen sense of nice shades in sound to have detected the change.

Mrs. Drayton’s sense of niceties in sound was particularly keen, but she answered quietly, “Nothing, thank you.”

They did not speak again till the trees round the stone well were reached.

Broomhurst arranged their seats comfortably beside it.

“Are we going to read or talk?” he asked, looking up at her from his lower place.

“Well, we generally talk most when we arrange to read; so shall we agree to talk to-day for a change, by way of getting some reading done?” she rejoined, smiling. “You begin.”

Broomhurst seemed in no hurry to avail himself of the permission; he was apparently engrossed in watching the flecks of sunshine on Mrs. Drayton’s white dress.  The whirring of insects, and the creaking of a Persian wheel somewhere in the neighbourhood, filtered through the hot silence.

Mrs. Drayton laughed after a few minutes; there was a touch of embarrassment in the sound.