But
why would she not speak?
He overawed her here in the daylight, and she felt silent and oppressed.
"Whereabouts is our tree that we sat in when I was young and you were
old?" he asked, after they had got through the gap in the hedge. A
little gate had been put in the last years to keep out the increasing
herd of deer.
"It is over there by the copse," she said shyly. "The lower branch fell
last winter, and it makes a delightful seat. One is not obliged to climb
into the tree now. See: Demetrius helped me to drag it close, and we
nailed on these two arms," and she pointed to a giant oak not far from
them, which John Derringham pretended to recognize.
He tried his best to get her to talk to him, but some cloud of timid
aloofness on her part seemed to hang between them, and very soon below
the copse they came to the one vulnerable part in all the haw-haw's
length. She showed him how to take the bricks out and where to place his
feet, and pointed out how secluded from any eye the place was. Then, as
he climbed down and then up again, and looked across at her from
Wendover lands, she said a sedate good-by, and turning, went on among
the thickly growing saplings of the copse and, never looking back, was
soon out of sight.
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