3. Some man has treated them very badly.
4. They wish to be contradicted and teased.
5. They are fibbing for the sake of fibbing.
With Elizabeth not one of these reasons would hold for a second.
But Elizabeth in love! Reason positively shouted an "Oh, no." ...
Yet a mad little suspicion, whispering within me, seemed to defy that voice of reason. As I walked along in the fast-gathering gloom I remembered I had seen a man look at Elizabeth quite lately. More lately still I had seen Elizabeth most uncharacteristically confused at the mention of that man's name.
Wildly improbable, I told myself. And, as I did so I walked straight into the meaning for Elizabeth's wanting to be left to herself just then.
In fact, I bumped into the young man, who was coming along the path.
"Oh, sorry," said a low-pitched, masculine voice that I had heard before. A hand was put up to a cap. Then the figure which I had run against passed quickly on up the field.
Elizabeth's "old" Colonel! She was meeting him out there!