“I thought your holidays did not end until next week,” she said.

“They do not.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I could not stay away, Cynthia,” he answered.  It was not the manner in which he would have said it a month ago.  There was a note of intense earnestness in his voice—­now, and to it she could make no light reply.  Confronted again with an unexpected situation, she could not decide at once upon a line of action.

“When did you leave Brampton?” she asked, to gain time.  But with the words her thoughts flew to the hill country.

“This morning,” he said, “on the early train.  They have three feet of snow up there.”  He, too, seemed glad of a respite from something.  “They’re having a great fuss in Brampton about a new teacher for the village school.  Miss Goddard has got married.  Did you know Miss Goddard, the lanky one with the glasses?”

“Yes,” said Cynthia, beginning to be amused at the turn the conversation was taking.

“Well, they can’t find anybody smart enough to replace Miss Goddard.  Old Ezra Graves, who’s on the prudential committee, told Ephraim they ought to get you.  I was in the post-office when they were talking about it.  Just see what a reputation for learning you have in Brampton!”

Cynthia was plainly pleased by the compliment.

“How is Cousin Eph?” she asked.

“Happy as a lark,” said Bob, “the greatest living authority in New England on the Civil War.  He’s made the post-office the most popular social club I ever saw.  If anybody’s missing in Brampton, you can nearly always find them in the post-office.  But I smiled at the notion of your being a school ma’am.”

“I don’t see anything so funny about it,” replied Cynthia, smiling too.  “Why shouldn’t I be?  I should like it.”

“You were made for something different,” he answered quietly.

It was a subject she did not choose to discuss with him, and dropped her lashes before the plainly spoken admiration in his eyes.  So a silence fell between them, broken only by the ticking of the agate clock on the mantel and the music of sleigh-bells in a distant street.  Presently the sleigh-bells died away, and it seemed to Cynthia that the sound of her own heartbeats must be louder than the ticking of the clock.  Her tact had suddenly deserted her; without reason, and she did not dare to glance again at Bob as he sat under the lamp.  That minute—­for it was a full minute—­was charged with a presage which she could not grasp.  Cynthia’s instincts were very keen.  She understood, of course, that he had cut short his holiday to come to see her, and she might have dealt with him had that been all.  But—­through that sixth sense with which some women are endowed—­she knew that something troubled him.  He, too, had never yet been at a loss for words.

The silence forced him to speak first, and he tried to restore the light tone to the conversation.