They climbed the sandy declivity, tufted with hillocks and boulders almost invisible in the increasing dusk, and reached the narrow and stony road at the top.
"We are not far from the farm," said Julian. "You must be tired."
"No, I like going down to the sea. I'm glad I met you. I was so angry at the beginning of the afternoon—after I'd seen poor little Miss Easter."
"I'm not at all surprised."
"Do you think," said Miss Marchrose, somewhat more than doubtfully, "that she is a discreet person?"
Sir Julian so emphatically thought the contrary that for the moment words almost failed him.
"Let us hope," he said at last, rather grimly, "that decency may induce her to hold her tongue on a subject of which she knows nothing whatsoever."
It struck him as he spoke that the foundation of the hope was but a frail one, and he wondered whether Miss Marchrose was thinking of Mark Easter as the recipient of his sister's newly-acquired piece of information.
If so, she gave no further sign of it, and he took her to the door of the farmhouse almost in silence.
Julian's thoughts that evening were occupied almost exclusively with Miss Marchrose. The complete frankness with which she had spoken that afternoon had put before him an extraordinarily new aspect of the self-contained, competent Lady Superintendent of the College. It appeared to him that he very well could imagine for himself all that she had hinted at, rather than described.