He had made up his mind what to do and say in case they did meet. For good or ill, he was determined to know his fate. It might be an act of presumption, or a simple act of folly—that was an aspect of the question that scarcely occurred to him.
The supreme factor in the case, as far as he was concerned, was, he loved her. On that point there was no room for doubt. The mere social aspect of the question he was constitutionally incapable of seeing. A man was a man, and if he were of good character, and able to maintain the woman he loved, what mattered anything else?
He came face to face with Dorothy at a bend in the road. She was walking slowly, with her eyes on the ground. She did not hear his footsteps on the grass-grown road, and when she looked up he was close upon her. There was no time to debate the situation even with herself, so she followed the impulse of her heart and held out her hand to him.
"I thought I should meet you to-day," he said. "I am sorry you have been ill."
"I was rather run down when I came," she answered, glancing at him with a questioning look, "and I think I caught cold on the journey."
"But you are better now?"
"Oh yes, I am quite well again."
"I feared you had returned to London. I have been on the look-out for you for weeks."
She looked shyly up into his face, but did not reply.
"I wanted to know my fate," he went on. "You know that I love you. You must have guessed it long before I told you."