Part 24 (1/2)

Winsome faltered. She had not been wooed after this manner before.

It was perilously sweet. Little ticking pulses beat in her head. A great yearning came to her to let herself drift up on a sea of love. That love of giving up all, which is the precious privilege, the saving dowry or utter undoing of women, surged in upon her heart.

She drew away her hand, not quickly, but slowly and firmly, and as if she meant it. ”I have come to a decision--I have made a vow,”

she said. She paused, and looked at Ralph a little defiantly, hoping that he would take the law into his own hands, and forbid the decision and disallow the vow.

But Ralph was not yet enterprising enough, and took her words a little too seriously. He only stood looking at her and waiting, as if her decision were to settle the fate of kingdoms.

Then Winsome emitted the declaration which has been so often made, at which even the more academic divinities are said to smile, ”I am resolved never to marry!”

An older man would have laughed. He might probably have heard something like this before. But Ralph had no such experience, and he bowed his head as to an invincible fate--for which stupidity Winsome's grandmother would have boxed his ears.

”But I may still love you, Winsome?” he said, very quietly and gently.

”Oh, no, you must not--you must not love me! Indeed, you must not think of me any more. You must go away.”

”Go away I can and will, if you say so, Winsome; but even you do not believe that I can forget you when I like.”

”And you will go away?” said Winsome, looking at him with eyes that would have chained a Stoic philosopher to the spot.

”Yes,” said Ralph, perjuring his intentions.

”And you will not try to see me any more--you promise?” she added, a little spiteful at the readiness with which he gave his word.

So Ralph made a promise. He succeeded in keeping it just twenty- four hours--which was, on the whole, very creditable, considering.

What else he might have promised we cannot tell--certainly anything else asked of him so long as Winsome continued to look at him.

Those who have never made just such promises, or listened to them being made--occupations equally blissful and equally vain--had better pa.s.s this chapter by. It is not for the uninitiated. But it is true, nevertheless.

So in silence they walked down to the opening of the glen. As they turned into the broad expanse of glorious suns.h.i.+ne the shadows were beginning to slant towards them. Loch Grannoch was darkening into pearl grey, under the lee of the hill. Down by the high- backed bridge, which sprang at a bound over the narrows of the lane, there was a black patch on the greensward, and the tripod of the gipsy pot could faintly be distinguished.

Ralph, who had resumed Winsome's hand as a right, pointed it out.

It is strange how quickly pleasant little fas.h.i.+ons of that kind tend to perpetuate themselves!

As Winsome's grandmother would have said, ”It's no easy turnin' a coo when she gets the gate o' the corn.”

Winsome looked at the green patch and the dark spot upon it. ”Tell me,” she said, looking up at him, ”why you ran away that day?”

Ralph Peden was nothing if not frank. ”Because,” he said, ”I thought you were going to take off your stockings!”

Through the melancholy forebodings which Winsome had so recently exhibited there rose the contagious blossom of mirth, that never could be long away even from such a fate-hara.s.sed creature as Winsome Charteris considered herself to be. ”Poor fellow,” she said, ”you must indeed have been terribly frightened!”

”I was,” said Ralph Peden, with conviction. ”But I do not think I should feel quite the same about it now!”

They walked silently to the foot of the Craig Ronald loaning, where by mutual consent they paused.

Winsome's hand was still in Ralph's. She had forgotten to take it away. She was, however, still resolved to do her duty.