CHAPTER XVIII.

A VOICE FROM THE CROWD.

Dolly had been unusually silent during the afternoon, and now, as we turned to retrace our steps in the direction of the station from which we were to take train for London, she walked beside me without uttering a word.

Suddenly, however, she put her hand upon my arm and stayed me.

“Renny,” she said, “will you stop a little while? I want to speak to you.”

“All right,” I said; “speak away.”

“Not here--not here. Come off the path; there’s a seat out there.”

Seeing with surprise that her face was pale and drawn with nervousness, and fancying our tramp might have over-tired her, I led her to the place she indicated--a bench set in the deep shadow of a chestnut tree--and we both sat down.

“Now, Doll,” I said, gayly, “what’s the tremendous confidence?”

“Renny,” she said, quietly, “William Reid has asked me to marry him.”

“No! William Reid--the young fellow over at Hansard’s? Well, I can only tell you, Dolly, that I know nothing but what’s good of him for a steady and promising chap, who’s sure to make as fine a husband as he is a workman.”

“Do you advise me to take him, then? Do you want me to?”

“You might do much worse--indeed you might, Dolly. Why, to my knowledge, he’s drawing £3 a week already. Of course I shall be very, very sorry to lose my little chum and companion, but I always foresaw that this would have to be the end of our comradeship some day.”

She sat looking at the ground a little while and adjusting a fallen twig with the point of her parasol. Then she rose and said, in the same quiet tone, “Very well,” and moved a step away.

I rose also and was about to resume the subject, when in a moment, to my horror, she threw herself back on the bench and, flinging her hands up to her face, burst into a passion of tears.

I was so startled and shocked that for the instant I could think of nothing to do or say. Then I bent down and cried:

“Dolly, what is it? What’s the matter? Have I hurt you in any way?”

She struggled with her sobs, but made a brave effort to command herself.

“Oh, don’t look, don’t listen! I shall be all right in a minute.”

I moved away a little space and stood anxiously waiting. When I turned again her face was still buried in her arm, but the keenness of the outburst was subdued.

I approached and leaned over her tenderly, putting a kind hand on her shoulder.

“Now, little woman,” I said, “won’t you tell me what it is? I might comfort and counsel you at least, Dolly, dear.”

She answered so low that I had to stoop further to hear her.

“I only thought, perhaps--perhaps you might care more and not want me to.”

What a simple little sentence, yet how fierce a vision it sprung upon my blindness! I rose and stepped back almost with a cry. Then Dolly sat up and saw my face.

“Renny,” she cried, “I never meant to tell; only--only, I am so miserable.”

I went to her and took her hand and helped her to her feet.

“Dolly,” I said, in a low, hoarse voice, “I have been a selfish brute. I never thought what I was doing, when I should have thought. Now, you must give me time to think.”

“You didn’t know. Renny”--her pretty eyes were struggling with tears again, and her poor face looked up into mine, entreating me not to take base advantage of her surrender--“if I kissed you as you kissed me once do you think it would come?”

“It isn’t right for us to try, dear.”

Thank heaven my manhood stood the test--the inference so pathetic in its childish simplicity.

“Come,” I said, “we will go back now. I want time to think it all over by myself. You mustn’t refer to it again, Dolly, in any way--not till I can see you by and by alone.”

She said, “Yes, Renny,” humbly. Her very manner toward me was marked by a touching obedience.

We caught our train and sped back to London in a crowded compartment, so that the present embarrassment of tete-a-tete was spared us. At the terminus we parted gently and gravely on both sides and went each of us home.

Duke was in bed when I reached our lodgings, and for that I was grateful, for I felt far too upset and confused to relish the idea of a talk with him. Indeed, since the moment Dolly had confessed to me, he had hung strangely in the background of my thoughts. I felt a comfortless dawning of apprehension that all along he had been keen witness of the silent little drama in which unconsciously I was an actor--had sat in the pit and sorrowfully gauged the purport of the