'Would you mind walking this way?' he said, and he led Lucy unresisting up the lane into that narrow part, past the posts, between the high hedges, that shut them out from all curious eyes.
'I have come to ask you a question,' he said, speaking low, with a little catch in his voice, 'and I want an answer before I go back to work. The Tripos begins on Monday. Will it be worth while to go in for it?'
'What do you mean?' she said; but she knew very well what he meant.
'I think you know what I mean, Miss Rae—Lucy. I think you know more about me than any other woman. If you will tell me I have anything to work for, I will go back and work, and—and some day I will come to you again; but if—if there is nothing to work for, I shall go down to-day.'
'You would not throw up your chance?' she said. She was quite pale, and she was trembling all over.
'I should certainly throw it up. What would be the use of a degree to me with that before me? There is only one thing, Lucy, to stand between me and it. My sentence must come from your lips. Am I to go back and work?'
No one looking at him standing there in the sunshine, with that smile on his face, would have dreamed the issue that hung on the girl's lips. She couldn't realize it herself; she could only gasp and tremble. He had quite taken her breath away. She would have given the world to run away without giving that fateful answer, but the lane was narrow, and he stood before her.
'Well,' he said, watching with his eager, questioning eyes the changes on her face, 'am I to go back to work?'
What could she say? Her lips faltered, and the words would not come; again she tried, but his sentence lingered.