In these minutes she endured the bitter mistrust, the sore hesitancy, of awaiting on a certain but unknown grief.
She had not long to wait, for Lewis came down the Avelin side by a bypath from Etterick village.

His alert gait covered his very real confusion, but to the girl he seemed one who belonged to an alien world of cheerfulness.

He could not know her grief, and she regretted her coming.
His manners were the same courteous formalities.

The man was torn with emotion, and yet he greeted her with a conventional ease.
"It was so good of you, Miss Wishart, to give me a chance to come and say good-bye.

My going is such a sudden affair, that I might have had no time to come to Glenavelin, but I could not have left without seeing you." The girl murmured some indistinct words.