I shall try to do what you both advise.

But at the same time I am of age; and if my word is worth anything, you know I have given that already." Dare felt no call to go to London by the early train on the following morning, so he found himself at liberty to spend an hour at Slumberleigh Rectory on his way to the station, and by the advice of Mr.Alwynn went into the garden, where the sound of the musical-box reached the ear, but in faint echoes, and where Ruth presently joined him.
In his heart Dare was secretly afraid of Ruth; though, as he often told himself, it was more than probable she was equally afraid of him.

If that was so, she controlled her feelings wonderfully, for as she came to meet him, nothing could have been more frankly kind, more friendly, or more composed than her manner towards him.

He took her out-stretched hand and kissed it.

It was not quite the way in which he had pictured to himself that they would meet; but if his imagination had taken a somewhat bolder flight in her absence, he felt now, as she stood before him, that it had taken that flight in vain.