"So you see the nuns
kept us apart."
"And you believe in these things?"
"How can I do otherwise?"
Owen sighed, and they walked on a few paces. The last leaves were
dancing; the woods were cold and wet, the heavy branches of the
fir-trees dripping with cold rain, and in the walks a litter of
chestnut-leaves.
"Not a space of blue in the sky, only grey. It will be drearier still
in Glasgow; you had better stay here," he said, as they walked round
the little lake, watching the water-fowl moving in and out of the
reeds, and they talked for some time of Riversdale, of the lake
there, and the ducks which rose in great numbers and flew round and
round the park, dropping one by one into the water. "You will never
see Riversdale again, perhaps?"
"Perhaps not," she answered; and hearing her say it, his future life
seemed to him as forlorn as the landscape.
"What will you do? What will become of you? What strange
transformation has taken place in you?"
"If--But what is the use of going over it again?"
"If what?"
"What would you have me do? Marriage would only ruin you, Owen, make
you very unhappy. Why do you want me to enter on a life which I feel
isn't mine, and which could only end in disaster for both of us.
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