Her pale
complexion showed a little color as she drew near; but there was not
much embarrassment in the calm, kind eyes.
"This is indeed a stroke of good-fortune," he said, "for I came down for
the very purpose of having a talk with you all by yourself--about
Lionel. But I did not imagine I should meet you here."
"I am going down to the station," she said. "I expect a parcel by the
train you must have come by; and I want it at once."
"May I go with you and carry it for you?" he said, promptly; and of
course she could not refuse so civil an offer. The awkward part of the
arrangement was that they had to go along through this straggling strip
of wood in single file, making a really confidential chat almost an
impossibility; whereupon he proposed, and she agreed, that they should
get out into the highway; and thereafter they went on to the station by
the ordinary road.
But this task he had undertaken proved to be a great deal more difficult
and delicate than he had anticipated. To have a talk with Francie--that
seemed simple enough; it was less simple, as he discovered, to have to
tell Lionel's cousin that the young man had gone and engaged himself to
be married.
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