When he returned, he glanced through the window of the sitting-room as he stepped upon the broad, old-fashioned veranda. There was no light except the driftwood fire in the big fireplace, and Miss Wheeler sat in a low chair watching it. It was an earnest womanly face full of purpose and aspiration. The repressed energy, which he had first noticed in her manner, was gone. She was off her guard, and her eyes were those of a wistful child, softened and made tender by her dreaming.
When he went down to breakfast the next morning, he learned that Miss Wheeler had taken her bicycle and gone off to spend the day. With a little tact, he diverted Mrs. Kitson's conversation to herself. He did not wish to take an unfair advantage, and besides he was not at all interested.
It was a long day, for he did not feel like work, so he tramped through the fields, sat on the sea shore, read a little, envied the consolation other men seemed to find in smoking, and was conscious of a new interest in life, when, just at dusk, Miss Wheeler rode up and dismounted at the gate.
Mrs. Kitson's penetrating voice rang out clearly, and rose to his room. "How fur did you ride?"
Miss Wheeler was bending over her cyclometer, but her reply was inaudible.
"Hey?"
"Twenty-three miles." Her young voice was clear and strong this time.
At supper he watched her closely for symptoms of weariness, but she was fresh and rosy, and unaffectedly hungry. She still wore her bicycle suit, and talked pleasantly with Mrs. Kitson. She answered Hardy's questions, to be sure, but it was in monosyllables.
"She must have the strength of an Amazon," he mused, as he sat by the fire while she was helping Mrs. Kitson with the dishes, and laughing occasionally in a happy childlike way.