'I did think of it,' she answers, under her breath.
'The mark is in it still!' he cries joyfully. 'Shall we take it up again where we left off? Where shall we sit? Under the Judas-tree?'
Her flickering smile dies into gravity.
'You are getting on very fast,' she says tremulously. 'Are you sure that it is not too fast?'
They have passed St. Mary's; noble porch and soaring spire lie behind them.
'Is it worth while your coming,' she continues, with evident difficulty, and with a quiver she cannot master in her low voice, 'when at any moment you may be obliged to go away again?'
'Why should I be obliged to go away again?'
Her voice has sunk to a key that is almost inaudible.
'I am only judging of the future by the past.'
He groans. The past! Is he never to escape from the past? never to hear the last of it? Is it always to dog him to his dying day?