Then he swung round and strolled away, while Wisbech smiled in a fashion which suggested that he was pleased. It was some little time later when Nasmyth, pacing moodily over the white shingle beside the winding inlet, came upon Violet Hamilton sitting in the shadow of a great boulder. The girl’s light dress matched the rock’s pale tinting, and he did not see her until he was within a yard or two of her. He stopped abruptly, with a deepened colour in his face. Violet made a sign, which seemed to invite him to sit down, and he stretched himself out upon the shingle close in front of her.
“It is very hot in the house this afternoon, but it is cool and quiet here,” she observed.
Nasmyth glanced at the still water and the shadow that the pines which clung in the crevices flung athwart the dark rock’s side.
“Stillness sometimes means stagnation. Miss Hamilton,” he said.
The girl flashed a quick glance at him. “Well,” she rejoined, “I suppose it does; but, after all, that is a question we need not discuss. What were you thinking of so hard as you came along? You didn’t see me until you almost stepped upon my dress.”
“That,” said Nasmyth, with a laugh, “is proof that I was thinking very hard indeed. It’s not a thing I often indulge in, but I was thinking of the Bush.”
“You sometimes feel you would like to be back there?”
“No,” answered Nasmyth reflectively; “I suppose I ought to feel that, but I’m not sure that I do.”
“Ah,” Violet remarked, “you have told me a good deal at one time or another about your life and friends there, but I almost fancied now and then that you were keeping something back. After all”––and she smiled at him––“I suppose that would have been only natural.”