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 crawled in between the sheets deliciously heated by the brass warming-pan, was going to happen. She stayed awake long enough to decide that, if she had read aright the increasing tenderness of Sears Ripley's glances, it would now be a good time to 'have it over with.' He was much too self-contained to make a scene—the old dear. Oh, how she would miss him—when she had given him her 'no' and bade him 'leave her forever.' Since being in London she had come to have a very different feeling towards him than when he had merely been a friend of Anthony Jones, a dark background to the other's radiance. She found out rather to her surprise that he really was a distinguished scholar and one of the few Americans whose ease and distinction of manner could stand comparison with England's best.

The next day was unromantically chill. Fogs lay in counterpanes over the wild land and hid from view the village of Liskeard, and its tall trees and square church tower. The vicar's wife would not let Miss Bardeen walk, even as far as the Fountain of Saint Cleer, without forcing upon her her own stout walking-boots and excessively ugly tweed walking-gown. It was so short Lanice blushed to see that her ankles would have been displayed to public view were it not for the masculine boots. She wore over her head a light-weight black wool shawl in the manner of a country woman. It gave her a perverse pleasure to think how plain and unattractive she would look upon this walk which she believed Professor Ripley had planned for weeks.