Stowell heard Bessie coming downstairs with great alacrity, but on seeing him she drew up with a certain embarrassment.
"Oh, it's you?"
She was shorter than he had thought, and the impression made by her photograph of something common in her beauty was deepened by the reality.
"Should we take a walk?" he said.
She hesitated for a moment, then went upstairs and returned presently in a round hat and a close-fitting costume which sat awkwardly upon her. What a change! Where was the free, warm, natural, full-bosomed girl with bare neck and sunburnt arms who had fascinated him in the glen?
They took the unfrequented path on the western side of Langness—a long serpentine tongue of land which protruded from the open mouth of the sea. He tried to begin upon the subject of his errand but found it impossible to do so.
"Bye and bye," he thought, "bye and bye."
Bessie kept step with him, but was almost silent. He asked if she was comfortable in her new quarters, and she said they were lonesome after the farm, but old Miss Brown was a dear and Miss Ethel a "dozey duck."
The common expression humiliated him. He inquired if she had been able to relieve her mother's anxiety, and she answered no, how could she, without letting her stepfather know where she was?
"They're telling me he's travelling the island over looking for me, but I don't know why. He was always dead nuts on me when I was at home."