Thrushes and blackbirds piped with cheerful persistence among the greening boughs of the old chestnut which shaded Mary Deane's cottage, and children roaming over the grassy downs above the sea, brought news of the skylark's song and the cuckoo's call.
Many a time in these lovely, fresh and sunny April days Angus Reay would persuade Mary away from her lace-mending to take long walks with him across the downs, or through the woods--and on each occasion when they started on these rambles together, David Helmsley would sit and watch for their return in a curious sort of timorous suspense--wondering, hoping, and fearing,--eager for the moment when Angus should speak his mind to the woman he loved, and yet always afraid lest that woman should, out of some super-sensitive feeling, put aside and reject that love, even though she might long to accept it.

However, day after day passed and nothing happened.

Either Angus hesitated, or else Mary was unapproachable--and Helmsley worried himself in vain.

They, who did not know his secret, could not of course imagine the strained condition of mind in which their undeclared feelings kept him,--and and he found himself more perplexed and anxious over their apparent uncertainty than he had ever been over some of his greatest financial schemes.

Facts and figures can to a certain extent be relied upon, but the fluctuating humours and vagaries of a man and woman in love with each other are beyond the most precise calculations of the skilled mathematician.