"Herons? no. Why should I? Where are they?" muttered Mr. Marvin,
vaguely, and he absent-mindedly followed his son, leaving Miriam
Liston sitting in the turf shelter, built like an embrasure in the
dyke, and Barebone standing a little distance from her, looking at
her.

A silence fell upon them--the silence that follows the departure of
a third person when those who are left behind turn a new page.
Miriam laid her book upon her lap and looked across the river now
slowly turning to its ebb. She did not look at Barebone, but her
eyes were conscious of his proximity. Her attitude, like his,
seemed to indicate the knowledge that this moment had been
inevitable from the first, and that there was no desire on either
part to avoid it or to hasten its advent.

"I had a haunting fear as we came up the river," he said at length,
quietly and with an odd courtesy of manner, "that you might have
gone away. That is the calamity always hanging over this quiet
house."

He spoke with the ease of manner which always indicates a long
friendship, or a close camaraderie, resulting from common interests
or a common endeavour.

"Why should I go away?" she asked.

"On the other hand, why should you stay?"

"Because I fancy I am wanted," she replied, in the lighter tone
which he had used. "It is gratifying to one's vanity, you know,