Six years ago, in the days of late summer, when Dyce Lashmar was spending his vacation at the vicarage, and Connie Bride was making ready to go out into the world, they had been wont to see a good deal of each other, and to exhaust the topics of the time in long conversations, tending ever to a closer intimacy of thought and sentiment.

The companionship was not very favourably regarded by Mr.
Lashmar, and to the vicar's wife was a source of angry apprehension.
There came the evening when Dyce and Constance had to bid each other good-bye, with no near prospect of renewing their talks and rambles together.

What might be in the girl's thought, she alone knew; the young man, effusive in vein of friendship, seemed never to glance beyond a safe borderline, his emotions satisfied with intellectual communion.

At the moment of shaking hands, they stood in a field behind the vicarage; dusk was falling and the spot secluded .-- They parted, Constance in a bewilderment which was to last many a day; for Dyce had kissed her, and without a word was gone.
There followed no exchange of letters.

From that hour to this the two had in no way communicated.