"Yes."
"You really want me to?"
He nodded.
A man was approaching them. He came round a bend in the road. It was Lynndal Barry.
"I've been for a little stroll," he explained. "These woods are certainly wonderful!"
"Yes, we like them," replied Hilda, in a very polite but at the same time very friendly tone. She was just a tiny bit afraid of the man who had come so far to marry her sister—not because Mr. Barry was the kind of man who spreads about him an aura of awe, but because Hilda knew there was something the matter. Yes, something seemed to be wrong. But Hilda did not guess how wrong.
"Were you going back to the cottage?" she asked.
"Yes, I thought I would."
"Then I'll walk back with you, if you don't mind."