She looked beautiful for a moment, with the tears hanging from her lashes, and the smile on her face.
"I called to see you at the parsonage, but you were just going up the street, so I thought I might be pardoned for coming too."
They were silent for a few moments. It was so like old times to be walking there together. The early stars shone faintly; but the clouds were still pink in the west; not a leaf stirred, not a breath; no sound save a night-bird calling to its mate in the pine-wood yonder, and the bleat of lambs in the distance. Presently Arthur broke the silence with sweet, tender words of sorrow for her loss.
"I should have written to you if I had known, but I was sick in the hospital, and I didn't—"
"Sick in the hospital! Why, Arthur, have you been ill? What was the matter?"
"A light typhoid fever. I went to the Wesleyan College, at Montreal, after that, so I didn't even know you had come back to college."
"To the Wesleyan? I thought you were so attached to Victoria! Whatever made you leave it, Arthur?"
He flushed slightly, and evaded her question.
"Do you know, it was so funny, Arthur, you roomed in the very house where I boarded last fall, and I never knew a thing about it till afterward? Wasn't it odd we didn't meet?"
Again he made some evasive reply, and she had an odd sensation, as of something cold passing between them. He suddenly became formal, and they turned back again at the bridge where they used to sit fishing, and where Beth never caught anything (just like a girl); they always went to Arthur's hook. The two forgot their coldness as they walked back, and Beth was disappointed that Arthur had an engagement and could not come in. They lingered a moment at the gate as he bade her good-night. A delicate thrill, a something sweet and new and strange, possessed her as he pressed her hand! Their eyes met for a moment.