As he spoke his eyes looked in the direction of the bluff where the river turned. The small black figure which he had observed was moving again, and if he were not mistaken was coming down the river. He kept an observant eye upon it, whilst his companion resumed.
“You are quite right. All the vacation, which I spent in Westmorland, your cousin was very attentive to me, and knowing that he was Sir James Bracknell’s heir, I was flattered by his attentions, and a little proud that he should find me attractive, when there were others who—who might have meant more to him.”
“You were too humble, Miss Gargrave,” said the corporal.
“Perhaps I was,” replied the girl, smiling wanly. “But that is how I felt at the time.... At the end of the autumn, just before I went back to Newnham for the Michælmas term, he proposed to me.”
Again for a moment she was silent, and the corporal glancing at her caught a pensive look upon her face, and guessed that she was reviewing that occasion in her mind. He waited for what seemed quite a long time, then he said encouragingly, “Yes?”
“I did not accept him then.”
“Why not?”
“For two reasons; the first because I was not quite sure that I loved him, and the second because I was not prepared to take such a step without first consulting my father.”
“They were both very excellent reasons.”
“So they seemed to me, but Lady Alcombe, under whose care I was whilst in England, did not agree with me.”