“I must be home before dark,” she told him.  “You see, the family don’t know where I am.  I haven’t said anything to them about—­about this.”

“That’s right,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation: 

“I didn’t think you would.  There’s plenty of time for that—­after things get settled a little—­isn’t there?”

She thought his look a little odd, but the impression passed as they walked to the motor.  He insisted now on her pinning the roses on the tweed coat, and she humoured him.  The winter sun had already begun to drop, and with the levelling rays the bare hillsides, yellow and brown in the higher light, were suffused with pink; little by little, as the sun fell lower, imperceptible clouds whitened the blue cambric of the sky, distant copses were stained lilac.  And Janet, as she gazed, wondered at a world that held at once so much beauty, so much joy and sorrow,—­such strange sorrow as began to invade her now, not personal, but cosmic.  At times it seemed almost to suffocate her; she drew in deep breaths of air:  it was the essence of all things—­of the man by her side, of herself, of the beauty so poignantly revealed to her.

Gradually Ditmar became conscious of this detachment, this new evidence of an extraordinary faculty of escaping him that seemed unimpaired.  Constantly he tried by leaning closer to her, by reaching out his hand, to reassure himself that she was at least physically present.  And though she did not resent these tokens, submitting passively, he grew perplexed and troubled; his optimistic atheism concerning things unseen was actually shaken by the impression she conveyed of beholding realities hidden from him.  Shadows had begun to gather in the forest, filmy mists to creep over the waters.  He asked if she were cold, and she shook her head and sighed as one coming out of a trance, smiling at him.

“It’s been a wonderful day!” she said.

“The greatest ever!” he agreed.  And his ardour, mounting again, swept away the unwonted mood of tenderness and awe she had inspired in him, made him bold to suggest the plan which had been the subject of an ecstatic contemplation.

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” he said, “we’ll take a little run down to Boston and have dinner together.  We’ll be there in an hour, and back by ten o’clock.”

“To Boston!” she repeated.  “Now?”

“Why not?” he said, stopping the car.  “Here’s the road—­it’s a boulevard all the way.”

It was not so much the proposal as the passion in his voice, in his touch, the passion to which she felt herself responding that filled her with apprehension and dismay, and yet aroused her pride and anger.

“I told you I had to be home,” she said.

“I’ll have you home by ten o’clock; I promise.  We’re going to be married, Janet,” he whispered.

“Oh, if you meant to marry me you wouldn’t ask me to do this!” she cried.  “I want to go back to Hampton.  If you won’t take me, I’ll walk.”