Time fled on wings as they talked; and they had the place to themselves.
They compared notes as to the beginnings of love on either side. Maurice told her what lovely eyes she had, and how she had taken him captive with her first glance, her first smile. Doris more cautiously admitted that he from the first had seemed unlike other men. They laughed over some recollections; and they lived through once more the crucial hour of her difficult rock-climb.
Then they reverted to his early life; and he told her many things connected with his past,—how seldom he had been allowed to see his own people; how his holidays had been spent with comparative strangers, or else at school. Doris said how she had taken to the gentle Winnie; and he replied earnestly that she should see Winnie as often as she chose,—but not Jane! She was silent, knowing that he could not, even for her sake, repudiate the relationship. And there was his mother too. A chill crept through her at the thought that she, some day, would be Mrs. Morris' daughter-in-law,—and Jane's sister-in-law! And what—oh, what—would her mother say? It was Mrs. Winton—not the Rector— whom she feared; and still more, opposition in herself.
She began to wonder how she could have so completely, given in to his urgency. At the first she had felt everything to be changed by this discovery; she had looked upon him as impossible. And now — here was she already engaged to marry him! Subject, no doubt, to her parents' consent; yet provisionally engaged.
Had she been too impulsive, too easily carried away? Would it not have been wiser, more sensible, at least to have insisted on time for consideration?
These doubts suggested themselves; and then again she met his ardent gaze, his glowing smile; and she could think of nothing else. He stole another kiss; and while she protested, she did feel that it was very sweet to be so loved.
"I don't understand about your name," she said later, having for a while lost sight of these questionings. "Why is it different from your mother's?"
"Mine is, I believe, the right spelling. Mr. Stirling settled the question for me in boyhood, and gave no reason. Sometimes I have fancied that my father may have wished to disguise his name, when he went to Canada. But I know so little—beyond that one fact that he was by birth and education a gentleman. My mother only spoke of it once; but she was quite definite."
Doris could not resist saying—
"But I saw his likeness."