She nodded.
"I've got to go and visit an old woman who lives almost in Little Fairfield, and I thought I'd avoid as much as I could of the high road."
"Shall I come with you?" asked Guy, but in so doubtful a voice that Margaret laughingly declared she was sure he was in a state of being offended with the Rectory.
"Oh, Margaret, don't be absurd. Offended?"
"Over the curtains?" she asked.
"Why if it wouldn't betray a gross insensibility to your opinion, I should tell you I thought no more about what you said. Besides, we've had reconciling Christmas since then."
"Ah, but you see, Pauline is always impressing on Monica and me our cruelty to you, and by this time Mother has been talked into believing in our hard and impenitent hearts."
"Pauline is...." Guy broke off and saw another squirrel. He could not trust himself to speak of Pauline, for in this stillness of snow he felt that the lightest remark would reveal his love; and there was in nature this morning a sort of suspense that seemed to rebuke unuttered secrets.
"Well, as you're walking with me to Fairfield—or nearly to Fairfield—your neglect of us shall be forgiven," Margaret promised. "Here we are out of the warm trees already. I'm glad I came this way, though I think it was rather foolish. Look how deep the snow seems on that field we've got to cross."
"It isn't really," said Guy, vaulting over the fence that ran round the confines of the Abbey wood.