Honor is just wondering whether Molly is crying or what, so quietly is she standing, just where Hugh left her, when suddenly a figure rushes past them in hot haste.
"I'm going to walk to the station with him!" cries Dick's voice. "Great dolt that I was not to think of it before!" and away he dashes through the gate.
After this little diversion the girls walk slowly back to the house, and joining their mother they stand talking together, or rather she and Honor do. After a few minutes Molly, still very quiet, says she is tired and will go to bed.
"Poor child!" says Mrs. Merivale as the door closes, "I think she feels his going. I wonder if she does care for him, and is just finding it out? I think we were right, though, Hugh and I—don't you, Honor?"
"What about, mother?"
"Why, I told you. Where is your memory, child? When he asked if he might give her that ring, he told me of his attachment to Molly. But he said it should be just as I wished whether he said anything to her or not. He said she was still so young in many ways that he did not want to frighten her, and perhaps destroy his chances later. He said, very sensibly I thought, that there is plenty of time; that they are both young, and he would rather that Molly grew to care for him on her own account as it were, than by its being suggested, so to speak. Don't walk up and down so, Honor! You fidget me to death, child, and I am expressing myself anyhow!"
Honor seats herself, and her mother goes on:
"Well, that was the gist of what he said, and I think it was a very right way of looking at things. What do you say?"
"Yes, I think so, certainly," replies Honor warmly. "I always liked Hugh, and I only hope Molly will be as fond of him one day as he is of her."
"He says," resumes Mrs. Merivale, paying no heed to this remark, "that if he does not come back in the ordinary course of things, he shall get short leave if he finds the time running on. There's Dick! Mind, not a word to him, Honor; he would tease the child out of her senses. I think the safest way will be for only you and me to know it. Doris will be so taken up with her own affairs that she will not give any thought to the matter. Of course his mother knows. She has always hoped for this, it seems. Ah, Molly is a good girl! You are all good girls, Honor. Now, good-night, dear; you look tired too, and I am sure I am."