striding up the beech avenue towards the house.

"It would be an extremely awkward place to get over in the dark," he
thought, and then he was conscious that Halcyone was far in the distance
in front of him, almost entering the house.

So she would be in, then--that was good.

He had never permitted his mind to dwell upon her for an instant, after
the Sunday walk. He made himself tell himself that she was a charming
child whom he felt great pity for, on account of her lonely life. That
he himself took a special interest in her he would not have admitted for
a second to his innermost thought. He had now definitely made up his
mind to propose to Cecilia Cricklander, and was only awaiting a suitable
occasion to put this intention into effect.

Numbers of moments had come--and passed--but he was always able to find
good and sufficient fault with them. And once or twice, when Fate itself
seemed to arrange things for him, he had a sudden sensation as of a
swimmer fighting with the tide, and he had battled to the shore again,
and was still free!

But it must come, of course, and before he left for London at the end of
the week. Private news had reached him that the Government must soon go
out, and he felt this thing must be an accomplished fact before then,
for the hand he meant to play.

But meanwhile it was only Tuesday, and he was nearing the battered and
nail-bestudded front door of La Sarthe Chase. William said the ladies
were at home, and he was shown into the Italian parlor forthwith.