We shall be quite alone there and perhaps
you will let me hold your hand."
She shook her head, gently but very firmly. "Such things are
impossible."
"Because I have a wife at Garden Green?"
She nodded.
"Because you have a wife, and because--I had really quite forgotten to
mention it before, but as a matter of fact I am half engaged to someone
myself."
He went suddenly white.
"You are not serious?" he demanded. "Perfectly," she assured him. "I
can't think how I forgot it."
"Does he come here to see you?" Burton asked, jealously.
"Not very often. He has to work hard." Burton leaned back in his seat.
The music of life seemed suddenly to be playing afar off--so far that he
could only dimly catch the strains. The wind, too, must have
changed--the perfume of the roses reached him no more.
"I thought you understood," he said slowly.
She did not speak again for several moments. Then she rose a little
abruptly to her feet.
"You can walk as far as the hayfield with me," she said.
They passed down the narrow garden path in single file. There had been
a storm in the night and the beds of pink and white stocks lay dashed
and drooping with a weight of glistening rain-drops.
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