He gave her hand a gentle pressure, and relinquished it.

Then it seemed as if he were coming to the point again.  No, he was not going to urge his suit that evening.  Another respite.

7.  THE EARLY PART OF SEPTEMBER

Saturday came, and she went on some trivial errand to the village post-office.  It was a little grey cottage with a luxuriant jasmine encircling the doorway, and before going in Cytherea paused to admire this pleasing feature of the exterior.  Hearing a step on the gravel behind the corner of the house, she resigned the jasmine and entered.  Nobody was in the room.  She could hear Mrs. Leat, the widow who acted as postmistress, walking about over her head.  Cytherea was going to the foot of the stairs to call Mrs. Leat, but before she had accomplished her object, another form stood at the half-open door.  Manston came in.

‘Both on the same errand,’ he said gracefully.

‘I will call her,’ said Cytherea, moving in haste to the foot of the stairs.

‘One moment.’  He glided to her side.  ‘Don’t call her for a moment,’ he repeated.

But she had said, ‘Mrs. Leat!’

He seized Cytherea’s hand, kissed it tenderly, and carefully replaced it by her side.

She had that morning determined to check his further advances, until she had thoroughly considered her position.  The remonstrance was now on her tongue, but as accident would have it, before the word could be spoken Mrs. Leat was stepping from the last stair to the floor, and no remonstrance came.

With the subtlety which characterized him in all his dealings with her, he quickly concluded his own errand, bade her a good-bye, in the tones of which love was so garnished with pure politeness that it only showed its presence to herself, and left the house—­putting it out of her power to refuse him her companionship homeward, or to object to his late action of kissing her hand.

The Friday of the next week brought another letter from her brother.  In this he informed her that, in absolute grief lest he should distress her unnecessarily, he had some time earlier borrowed a few pounds.  A week ago, he said, his creditor became importunate, but that on the day on which he wrote, the creditor had told him there was no hurry for a settlement, that ’his sister’s suitor had guaranteed the sum.’  ‘Is he Mr. Manston? tell me, Cytherea,’ said Owen.

He also mentioned that a wheeled chair had been anonymously hired for his especial use, though as yet he was hardly far enough advanced towards convalescence to avail himself of the luxury.  ’Is this Mr. Manston’s doing?’ he inquired.

She could dally with her perplexity, evade it, trust to time for guidance, no longer.  The matter had come to a crisis:  she must once and for all choose between the dictates of her understanding and those of her heart.  She longed, till her soul seemed nigh to bursting, for her lost mother’s return to earth, but for one minute, that she might have tender counsel to guide her through this, her great difficulty.