On that day John Fletcher took her out to dinner, and Arthur did not sit near her. In the evening he came to her as she was working close to his mother, and seated himself on a low chair close to her knees. "We are all so glad to see you; are we not, mother?"
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Fletcher. Then, after a while, the old woman got up to make a rubber at whist with the two old men and her eldest son, leaving Arthur sitting at the widow's knee. She would willingly have escaped, but it was impossible that she should move.
"You need not be afraid of me," he said, not whispering, but in a voice which no one else could hear. "Do not seem to avoid me, and I will say nothing to trouble you. I think that you must wish that we should be friends."
"Oh, yes."
"Come out, then, to-morrow, when we are walking. In that way we shall get used to each other. You are troubled now, and I will go." Then he left her, and she felt herself to be bound to him by infinite gratitude.
A week went on and she had become used to his company. A week passed and he had spoken no word to her that a brother might not have spoken. They had walked together when no one else had been within hearing, and yet he had spared her. She had begun to think that he would spare her altogether, and she was certainly grateful. Might it not be that she had misunderstood him, and had misunderstood the meaning of them all? Might it not be that she had troubled herself with false anticipations? Surely it was so; for how could it be that such a man should wish to make such a woman his wife?
"Well, Arthur?" said his brother to him one day.
"I have nothing to say about it," said Arthur.
"You haven't changed your mind?"
"Never! Upon my word, to me, in that dress, she is more beautiful than ever."