'I would not have come here, had I known you were in this neighbourhood; but having met I cannot go without a word with you. Nesta, you are not happy; I see it in your face! Time has not soothed and comforted you; why will you not let me share your trouble and stand by you when perhaps you need a friend more than ever you did in days of old? Do you realize the blank you are making in my life, as well as in your own? Yes, I know I am taking much for granted; but yours is not a nature to change. I believe in you now as I always did, and it is only your mistaken ideas of duty that have brought this trouble into our lives.'
He paused, and then Nesta spoke, looking away from the low churchyard wall by which they were standing to the hills in the distance.
'I am sorry we have met,' she said simply, 'very sorry, for it is pain to us both; but the circumstances in my life have not changed; I cannot act differently; my mother and sister require me, and my mother——' Her voice faltered.
'Your mother is still of the same opinion,' he said. 'I look back with regret to my heated words when last I saw her. Time and another Teacher has shown me since where I was wrong; but, Nesta, let me plead my—may I say our cause with her again? She has no right to spoil our lives, and it is no true kindness to her to allow her to do it. Give me your permission to come and see her.'
'I cannot; it will only stir up her grief and pain afresh. She will not, cannot, look at things in a different light.'
'And are you going to part with me like this?'
His tone was low and husky with feeling. He added, a little drearily, 'I wonder, after all, if your affection has cooled; you speak so calmly about it all, that it makes one think——'
Nesta heard him so far, and then put out her hand as if to stop him.
'Oh, Godfrey!'
That was all; but as the old familiar name slipped from her lips she burst into tears, and turning aside, leant her arms on the old wall and buried her head in them.