"Yes; they were still near the house."
The two were walking side by side along the road now.
"If you were any ordinary girl I should be afraid to leave you to think things over—for fear you should think you'd been rash or silly or something—and worry yourself about all sorts of nonsense, and perhaps end in bolting back to your hutch before I could come back to you. But since it's you—let's cut across the downs here—we'll keep close to the edge of the wood."
Their feet now trod the soft grass.
"How sensible of you to wear a dark cloak," he said.
"Yes," she said, "a really romantic young lady in distress would have come in white muslin and blue ribbons, wouldn't she?"
He glowed to the courage that let her jest at such a moment.
"Where am I to wait?" she asked.
"There's an old farm-house not far away," he said. "If you don't mind waiting there. Could you?"
"Who lives there?"