‘What a thing to say!’ he exclaimed; ’surely a pure kiss is not inappropriate to the place!’

‘No,’ she replied, with a swelling heart; ’I don’t know why I burst out so—­I can’t tell what has come over me!  Will you forgive me?’

’How shall I say “Yes” without judging you?  How shall I say “No” without losing the pleasure of saying “Yes?"’ He was himself again.

‘I don’t know,’ she absently murmured.

‘I’ll say “Yes,"’ he answered daintily.  ’It is sweeter to fancy we are forgiven, than to think we have not sinned; and you shall have the sweetness without the need.’

She did not reply, and they moved away.  The church was nearly dark now, and melancholy in the extreme.  She stood beside him while he locked the door, then took the arm he gave her, and wound her way out of the churchyard with him.  Then they walked to the house together, but the great matter having been set at rest, she persisted in talking only on indifferent subjects.

‘Christmas Day, then,’ he said, as they were parting at the end of the shrubbery.

‘I meant Old Christmas Day,’ she said evasively.

‘H’m, people do not usually attach that meaning to the words.’

‘No; but I should like it best if it could not be till then?’ It seemed to be still her instinct to delay the marriage to the utmost.

‘Very well, love,’ he said gently. ’’Tis a fortnight longer still; but never mind.  Old Christmas Day.’

9.  THE ELEVENTH OF SEPTEMBER

‘There.  It will be on a Friday!’

She sat upon a little footstool gazing intently into the fire.  It was the afternoon of the day following that of the steward’s successful solicitation of her hand.

’I wonder if it would be proper in me to run across the park and tell him it is a Friday?’ she said to herself, rising to her feet, looking at her hat lying near, and then out of the window towards the Old House.  Proper or not, she felt that she must at all hazards remove the disagreeable, though, as she herself owned, unfounded impression the coincidence had occasioned.  She left the house directly, and went to search for him.

Manston was in the timber-yard, looking at the sawyers as they worked.  Cytherea came up to him hesitatingly.  Till within a distance of a few yards she had hurried forward with alacrity—­now that the practical expression of his face became visible she wished almost she had never sought him on such an errand; in his business-mood he was perhaps very stern.

‘It will be on a Friday,’ she said confusedly, and without any preface.

‘Come this way!’ said Manston, in the tone he used for workmen, not being able to alter at an instant’s notice.  He gave her his arm and led her back into the avenue, by which time he was lover again.  ’On a Friday, will it, dearest?  You do not mind Fridays, surely?  That’s nonsense.’

’Not seriously mind them, exactly—­but if it could be any other day?’