A rather faltering step was upon the flagged path skirting the close-shaven lawn. Katharine looked up.
He was there before her, the man of whom she had been thinking—the same, yet not the same. There was little to remind her of the gay young lover of nine years ago, except the eyes, which looked forth from the worn face with the old expression in them—the old expression she remembered so well, only deepened and intensified.
“Katharine!” said Lord St. Quentin.
She was at his side in a moment. “You should not be standing! Take my arm. Here is an easy chair for you.”
He sank into the chair she had drawn forward; she sat down quietly at his side.
Around them hyacinths were springing everywhere about the grass—it was a fancy of the Dean’s to grow them so, instead of in the garden beds. The air seemed filled with their rare fragrance.
Under the grey line of the old Deanery ran a border bright with golden daffodils.
“You stood there when I saw you first,” St. Quentin said. “You were outlined against the grey wall in your pale green gown, and you held a bunch of daffodils in one hand. You wore no hat, and the breeze was stirring your hair on your temples as it is to-day.”
She put her hand to her head with a nervous gesture quite unusual with her.
“Nine years ago,” she said. “I have changed.”