itself; her redness deepened whenever Christopher passed her by, and embarrassment pervaded her from the lowest stitch to the tip of her feather.  She had little chance of escaping him by diverging from the road, for a figure could be seen across the open ground to the distance of half a mile on either side.  One day as he drew near as usual, she met him as women meet a cloud of dust—­she turned and looked backwards till he had passed.

This would have been disconcerting but for one reason:  Christopher was ceasing to notice her.  He was a man who often, when walking abroad, and looking as it were at the scene before his eyes, discerned successes and failures, friends and relations, episodes of childhood, wedding feasts and funerals, the landscape suffering greatly by these visions, until it became no more than the patterned wall-tints about the paintings in a gallery; something necessary to the tone, yet not regarded.  Nothing but a special concentration of himself on externals could interrupt this habit, and now that her appearance along the way had changed from a chance to a custom he began to lapse again into the old trick.  He gazed once or twice at her form without seeing it:  he did not notice that she trembled.

He sometimes read as he walked, and book in hand he frequently approached her now.  This went on till six weeks had passed from the time of their first encounter.  Latterly might have been once or twice heard, when he had moved out of earshot, a sound like a small gasping sigh; but no arrangements were disturbed, and Christopher continued to keep down his eyes as persistently as a saint in a church window.

The last day of his engagement had arrived, and with it the last of his walks that way.  On his final return he carried in his hand a bunch of flowers which had been presented to him at the country-house where his lessons were given.  He was taking them home to his sister Faith, who prized the lingering blossoms of the seeding season.  Soon appeared as usual his fellow-traveller; whereupon Christopher looked down upon his nosegay.  ‘Sweet simple girl,’ he thought, ’I’ll endeavour to make peace with her by means of these flowers before we part for good.’

When she came up he held them out to her and said, ’Will you allow me to present you with these?’

The bright colours of the nosegay instantly attracted the girl’s hand—­perhaps before there had been time for thought to thoroughly construe the position; for it happened that when her arm was stretched into the air she steadied it quickly, and stood with the pose of a statue—­rigid with uncertainty.  But it was too late to refuse:  Christopher had put the nosegay within her fingers.  Whatever pleasant expression of thanks may have appeared in her eyes fell only on the bunch of flowers, for during the whole transaction they reached to no higher level than that.  To say that he was coming no more seemed scarcely necessary under the circumstances, and wishing her ‘Good afternoon’ very heartily, he passed on.