“I hope the Sisters are not trying to influence you,” he said firmly.
“Fancy!” she cried irrelevantly. “I heard the other day that Sister Ann Frances had described me as the pride of the Baker Institution!” She laughed with delight at the humour of it, and he smiled too. When she laughed, he had nearly always now confidence enough to smile too.
“You might ask for another six months.”
“Heavens, no! No—I shall make up my mind.”
“Then you may go away,” Arnold said. They were standing at the crossing of the wide red road from which they would go in different directions. She saw that the question was momentous to him. She also saw how curiously the sun sallowed him, and how many more hollows he had in his face than most people. She had a pathetic impression of the figure he made in his coarse gown and shoes. “God's wayfarer,” she murmured. There was pity in her mind, infinite pity. Her thought had no other tinge. It was a curiously simple feeling, and seemed to bring her an inconsistent lightness of heart.
“Come too,” she said aloud, “come and be a Clarke Brother where the climatic conditions suit you better. The world wants Clarke Brothers everywhere.”
He looked at her and tried to smile, but his lips quivered. He opened them in an effort to speak, gave it up, and turned away silently, lifting his hat. Hilda watched him for an instant as he went. His figure took strange proportions through the tears that sprang to her eyes, and she marvelled at the gaiety with which she had touched, had almost revealed, her heart's desire.
CHAPTER XXIX
“I knew it would happen in the end,” Hilda said, “and it has happened. The Archdeacon has asked me to tea.”