The brain works quickly in times of excitement and emotion, and all these considerations passed through his mind as in a flash. Should he tell this sweet-eyed girl that she must not come to see him again, and let her go away believing that he disapproved of her coming at all?
Better so. Better a few hours or days of sharp pain now than a life-long agony after.
"I must be brave," he said to himself. "The first lesson in life is self-conquest."
The form of words he decided to use shaped themselves quickly. The more explicit the better.
He turned his head toward her with resolutions full grown in his heart, and their eyes met again.
CHAPTER XI
A TALK BY THE WAY
Generally speaking, Rufus Sterne was not lacking in courage, either physical or moral. But no man knows his strength till he is tested. Many a man has passed through tempest and flood, fire and sword, unscathed and undaunted, and in the end has gone down helplessly and ignominiously before a pair of soft brown eyes.