"Perhaps; I never shall, though." She added, laughing a little, "Neither will you. I've made you an accomplice, you're bound to a guilty silence now." Then, growing grave, she leant towards him. "Don't look like that," she said, "pray, pray, pray don't. I haven't spoilt your life as well as my own? No, you mustn't tell me that." Her voice grew very tender and low. "But I can say almost all you want. I wish I had loved you, I wish I had married you. Oh, how I wish it! I should have been happy, I think, and I know I—I shouldn't have had to live as I do now and do the things I have to do now. Well, it's too late."
"You're very young," he said in a voice as low as hers. "It mayn't always be too late."
She started a little, drawing away from him. He had brought back thoughts which the stress of pain and excitement had banished from her mind.
"You mean——?" she murmured. "I know what you mean, though." Her face showed again a sort of puzzle. "I can't think of that happening. I tried the other day—à propos of something else; but I couldn't. I couldn't see it, you know. It doesn't fit my ideas about him. No, that won't happen. We must just go on."
The wind had begun to rise, the trees stirred, leaves rustled, the whole making, or seeming to her ears to make, a sad whimsical moaning. She rose, gathering her lace scarf closer round her neck, and saying, "Do you hear the wood crying for us? It's sorry for our little troubles." She stood facing him and he took both her hands in his. "You look so unhappy," she said in a fresh access of pity. "No use, no use; it'll all go on, right to the end of everything. So—good-bye."
"He's coming to-morrow, isn't he?"
"Yes, he's coming to-morrow. Good-bye." She smiled a little, feeling Marchmont's hands drawing her to him. "Oh, kiss me then," she said, turning her cheek to him. "It'll feel friendly. And now we'll go in."
They had just started to return when they heard steps in the wood, and a moment later her name was called in Dick Benyon's voice. Marchmont shouted in answer, "Here we are," and Dick came along the path.
"I couldn't think where you'd got to," he said.
"That's because you've no romance in you," said May. "Or you'd have known we should be wandering in the wood in the moonlight. Ah, she's gone under a cloud now, but she was beautiful. Are we wanted, though?"