"I wonder what made me come," thought Lady Joan to herself, as she climbed the stile into the castle meadow; and her courage half failed her when she caught sight of a man in a brown felt hat that she had seen before, sitting on a fragment of the old ruined wall by the side of the brook.
But he had already seen her, and was coming towards her; and with a recklessness which she evidenced at once by letting her skirt trail on the damp grass, she went on to meet him.
"Then marry me," the musician was saying, half-an-hour later. It had not struck him before that she might not possibly want to do so.
"But I have already told you that I do not love you," persisted Lady Joan, who was enjoying herself immensely.
"What does that matter? It will come in time, it is sure to come. Besides, I love you; is not that enough?"
It would have been, to most of his lady friends; but Lady Joan only caught the humor of his words, and laughed derisively.
"You think you are going to put me off by pretending to laugh," he went on patiently; this was to show his superior knowledge of her character; "but the truth is that you dare not be serious, Lady Joan; why don't you give in to your real feelings and stop making a joke of life just this once?"
"I make a joke of life?" she cried; she was half in earnest now; "how is that possible unless one has realized its sadness? You enthusiasts who have never laughed at anything, and are always talking about taking life seriously, you have never gone deep enough to see that it _is_ serious. If you had, you would only laugh for the rest of your life, because--it would be impossible after you had once realized _that_ to keep serious and live."
For the first time in his life the musician did not want to argue.
"Don't you see that I love you as I have never loved any one before, as I could never love any one again?" he said humbly.
"How am I to believe that?" she retorted sharply, and he flushed slightly.
"Is that quite fair of you? Have I not been always perfectly open with you? I told you the story of my marriage the first time I ever met you, and I have told you to-day about poor little No--about Miss Bisley. Could any man do more?"
"No," she said carelessly, "but you might very well have done less,--I mean, the whole town told me about Miss Bisley directly I came home from abroad, though, except for the name, the two accounts do not tally in the least. But then, nothing in Relton shrinks in the washing."