"I've killed eight trout," she said; "one nearly three-quarters of a pound."
"A grand fish. I will carry them for you. Fine weather to-day and the summer really at the door."
"It was thoughtful of you to keep away, Myles. I appreciated that."
"I should have gone clean and haunted the land no further; but there was much to do. Now all is done, and I'm glad of this chance to tell you so. I can really depart now. You'll think it a cry of 'Wolf!' and doubt my strength to turn my back on Bear Down again; but go I must at last."
She was reflecting with lightning rapidity. That he meant what he said she did not doubt. The news, indeed, was hardly unexpected; yet it came too suddenly for her peace of mind. There existed a side to this action in which she had an interest. Indeed with her might lie the entire future of him, if she willed it so. Decisions now cried to be made, and while even that morning they had looked afar off, vague, nebulous as need be, now they rushed up from the horizon of the future to the very zenith of the present. Yet she could not decide thus instantly, so temporised and asked idle questions to gain time.
"Of what were you thinking when I saw you cross the river with your head so low?" she asked, and hoped that his answer might help her. But nothing was further from his mind than the matter in hers. He answered baldly—
"My head was bent that I might see my way on the stepping-stones. As to my thoughts, I only had a muddled idea about the season and the green things—friends and foes—all growing together at the beginning of the race—all full of youth and sap and trust—so to speak; and none seeing any danger in the embrace of his companion. Look at that pest, the beautiful bindweed. It breaks out of the earth with slender fingers, weak as a baby's, yet it grows into a cruel, soft, choking thing of a thousand hands—more dangerous to its neighbour than tiger to man—a garotter, a Thug, a traitor that hangs out lovely bells and twines its death into fair festoons that it may hide the corpse of its own strangling."
"And then?"
"That was all my thought. Yet I seemed to feel akin to the plant myself."
"Something has changed you since we dropped out of one another's lives. Fancy a practical farmer mooning over such nonsense! Bindweed can be pulled up and burnt—even if it's growing in your heart."