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“No, I am serious,” Fletcher said. “Sit down a minute and let me explain!”

Then, as she hesitated, he very gently put her down upon the seat under the closed window, and stood before her, blocking her in.

“I have been wanting this opportunity of talking to you,” he said, “without Jack chipping in. He’s a good fellow, and I know he is on my side. But I have a fancy for scoring off my own bat. Listen, Dot! I am not suggesting anything very preposterous. You have promised to marry me. Haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, breathlessly. “Yes.”

“Yes,” he repeated. “And the longer you have to think about it, the more scared you will get. My dear child, what is the point of spinning it out in this fashion? You are going through agonies of mind–for nothing. If I gave you back your freedom, you wouldn’t be any happier, would you?”

She was silent.

“Would you?” he said again, and laid his hand upon her shoulder.

“I–don’t think so,” she said, faintly.

He took up her words again with magisterial emphasis. “You don’t think so. Well, there is every reason to suppose you wouldn’t. You weren’t happy before, were you?”

She gripped her courage with immense effort. “I haven’t been happy–since,” she said.

He accepted the statement without an instant’s discomfiture. “I know you haven’t. I realized that the moment I saw you. You have been suffering the tortures of the damned because you’re in a positive hell of indecision. Oh, I know all about it.” His hand moved a little upon her shoulder; it almost seemed to caress her. “I haven’t studied human nature all these years for nothing. I know you’re in a perfect fever of doubt, and it’ll go on till you’re married. What’s the good of it? Why torture yourself like this when the way to happiness lies straight before you? Are you hoping against hope that something may yet turn up to prevent our marriage? Would you be happy if it did? Answer me!”

But she shrank from answering, sitting with her hands clasped tightly before her and her eyes downcast like a prisoner awaiting sentence. “I don’t know–what I want,” she told him, miserably. “I feel–as if–whatever I do–will be wrong.”

“That’s just it,” said Fletcher Hill, as if that were the very admission he had been waiting for. And then he did what for him was a very curious thing. He went down upon one knee on the dusty floor, bringing his face on a level with hers, clasping her tense hands between his own. “You don’t trust yourself, and you won’t trust me,” he said. “Isn’t that it? Or something like it?”

The official air had dropped from him like a garment. She looked at him doubtfully, almost as if she suspected him of trying to trick her. Then, reassured by something in the harsh countenance which his voice and words utterly failed to express, she leaned impulsively forward with a swift movement of surrender and laid her head against his shoulder.

“I’ll do–whatever you wish,” she said, in muffled tones. “I will trust you! I do trust you!”

He put his arm around her, for she was trembling, and held her so for a space in silence.

The voice in the billiard-room took up the tale. “That fellow’s luck is positively prodigious. He can’t help scoring–whatever he does. He’d dig gold out of an ash heap.”

Someone laughed, and there came again the clash of the billiard-balls, followed in a second by a shout of applause.

The noise subsided, and Fletcher spoke. “My job here will be over in a week. Jack can manage to join us at the end of it. Your sister-in-law is already here. Why not finish up by getting married and returning to Wallacetown with me?”

“I should have to go back to the farm and get the rest of my things,” said Dot.

“You could do that afterwards,” he said, “when I am away on business. I shan’t be able to take you with me everywhere. Some of the places I have to go to would be too rough for you. But I shall be at Wallacetown for some weeks after this job. You have never seen my house there. I took it over from the last Superintendent. I think you’ll like it. I got it for that reason.”