"That is true," she said simply. "I am not strong enough to stand alone, and I admire in men the qualities lacking in myself. We had better go home; your mother will be waiting for her tea."
Jim said no more, but in the evening he asked his mother if she had any reason to suppose that an understanding existed between Mark and Betty.
"When she refused Kirtling, Pynsent and I made certain she was engaged to Mark. Now he has gone to the uttermost ends of the earth, and she never mentions his name to me."
"Nor to me," said Mrs. Corrance. Then she touched her son's shoulder very gently. "Do not make ropes out of sand, dear."
Jim went back to town on Monday morning, but he returned to King's Charteris the following Friday, and walked once more with Betty in the lovely woods which lie between Westchester and the New Forest. Naturally and by training an acute observer, although a keener judge of men than women, Betty puzzled him. He saw that she was slightly contemptuous of the material side of life, although willing to listen by the hour to his presentment of it. This, however, might be a phase, a mood. He felt assured, now, that Betty would have married Mark had he asked her to do so, and he lay awake at night wondering whether she would marry anybody else. For the rest he determined that he must make haste slowly. He would give the girl the fellowship she craved without defining its elements. That she was grateful for such abstinence her manner proved. She became at once open, candid, a delightful companion.
Meantime the Squire had not left Pitt Hall. When he met Betty, he said, with some confusion, that the "Madam" (as he called Mrs. Samphire) had opposed so long a journey; one, moreover, which was like to prove a fool's errand. He excused himself by complaining querulously of an estate which exacted constant supervision. His face was even more florid than usual, and his manner less complacent. When Betty mentioned this to Archie (who rode over from Westchester on a well-bred cob), he expressed a fear that his father was losing money.
"He spoke of going North," Betty said, after a pause. "If Mark is really ill, surely he ought to be nursed by—by his nearest and dearest?"
Archie betrayed astonishment.
"Ill? Really ill? I've heard nothing of serious illness, not a word. How do you know, Betty?"
"I have guessed," she answered vehemently. "He has slipped away to—to die, perhaps!"