I can only presume it must be because—I can't help believing in you."

Her glance wavered: her colour deepened. "I don't understand …" she murmured.

"Nor I," he confessed in a tone as low.…

A sudden grumble from the teakettle provided welcome distraction. Lanyard lifted it off the flames and slowly poured boiling water on a measure of tea in an earthenware pot.

"A cup of this and something to eat'll do us no harm," he ventured, smiling uneasily—"especially if we're to pursue this psychological enquiry into the whereforeness of the human tendency to change one's mind!"