He left her at the gate of the cottage where she lived with her father.
As he went back up the hill he meditated on his position. He was right to make it clear to her, now that she had begun to care for him. He would have told her long ago if he had known that she cared. Yesterday he didn’t know it. But to-day there had been something, in her manner, in her voice, in the way she looked at him in the church after his playing, that had told him.
Poor little Effie. She would have nothing either, unless her father—and Effie’s father was a robust man, not quite fifty.
Well—he mustn’t think of it. And he mustn’t let his mother think. He wondered whether he was too late, whether she had seen anything. He tried to slink past the drawing-room and up the stairs. But his mother had heard him come in. She called to him. He went to her, shame-faced, as if he had committed a sin.
Her large, gentle eyes looked at him, wondering. He could see them wondering.
“Wilfrid,” she said suddenly, “do you care for that little girl?”
“What’s the good of my caring? I can’t marry her. I’ve just told her so.”
“It’s too late. She’s in love with you. You should have told her before.”
“How could I if she didn’t care? You can’t be fatuous.”
“No—poor boy. Poor Effie.”