"Why not?" he queried, frowning. "Well, we'll risk it anyway. Look here, let's meet at the bottom of Coster Lane--say at eleven. Shall we? That will give us two hours, lots of time."
She nodded without speaking, and put her hand on the latch.
"You won't be late--Edith," he said, calling her, on the impulse, by her Christian name.
She flushed in the kindly dark. "No," she said softly. How could she? she asked herself as she let herself in.
It was half-past ten when Paul climbed the steps of his father's house and rang the bell. The little family had finished supper and were waiting prayers for him. "Where have you been, Paul?" questioned his mother. "It's very late, dear."
"I saw Miss Thornton home, mother," said Paul.
"Oh, Paul! Was no one else going her way?"
"I did not think to ask," replied Paul frankly.
"Dear, you ought to take care. Such a lot is expected of your father's son. Did you go in?"
"Well, dear, go and take your boots off while Annie brings the cocoa in. And don't be long, Paul. I don't want you to miss prayers on your last Sunday."
He went out, closing the door. Mrs. Kestern looked across at her husband, stretched out in his arm-chair, tired after a heavy day, and gazing into the glowing coals. "Father, I think you ought to say something to him," she said. "That girl is very attractive, and quite clever enough not to run after him too obviously."
The clergyman stirred. "I don't know, dear," he said. "You know well enough we have never had any trouble of that sort with him, and Paul is not without ballast. God, Who redeemed me from all evil," he added gently, "bless the lad."
In truth Mr. Kestern was both right and wrong. The next morning, departing on his bicycle with a mere statement that he wanted a last ride, Paul was very conscious of doing something he had never done before. He had no sister, and his girl friends were mainly a family of cousins so closely interested in each other, that, although they were friendly enough and admitted him to the family circle on long summer holidays together, he was not really intimate with any one of them. Nor had he wanted any girl in his life. He and his father were great friends, and the two shared pleasures and work with a rare companionship. Paul, with his natural gifts, had thus been drawn into active religious life much earlier than is common, and he was naturally studious, fond of nature and of a literary bent. What with one thing and another, his life was full. With his father he departed on Saturday afternoons for the woods and the ponds, and Sunday was the best day of the week to him despite its strict observance in that Evangelical atmosphere. But nature is not easily defeated. He rode, now, to meet Edith, with a virgin stirring of his pulses.