“Finish it,” he urged, drawing himself up to my knee, and looking eagerly in my face—an eagerness I felt rather than saw. “Nobody in all the world—what?”
“Nobody will make me forget my old friends in Australia,” I replied hastily. “Isn’t it going to rain, Tom? How dark it is getting! And we must have exceeded our five minutes long ago.”
“I wish you had finished that sentence,” he remarked quietly, getting up from the grass as I rose. “However, thank you for the beginning, Kitty. Yes; we’d better get back as quick as we can. I did not notice how it was clouding over. What a blessing rain would be!—but not to you in that thin frock. If it comes on, you must have my coat.”
We never, during all our intercourse, said so little to one another in a given time as during our walk home that night. I could not think of anything to talk about, and I suppose he would not; and yet the silence seemed to shout to us. It was so dark now, with heavy rain-clouds gathering up, that I was glad to take his offered hand, and be guided through the paddocks and fences that I knew so well. In old days we used to scramble over these latter together, and tear our clothes in company; but now he opened the gates and took down the slip panel, as if he had been escorting mother. When we approached the high hedges of the garden, he made a little pause; and our dogs came and sniffed at us, full of curiosity to know what was going to happen next.
“Kitty,” said he, “shall I come in and speak to them? Or would you rather say good night here?”
“Couldn’t you stay all night, Tom? It is going to be wet, and you have so far to walk.”
“Oh no, Kitty, certainly not; my people don’t know where I am. And a drop of rain would do one good this weather.”
“Then, perhaps—they are very much occupied to-night—perhaps we had better say good night now; and I shall go in the back way. Good night, Tom.”
My hand had lain all this time in the warm clasp of his; now I drew it away, without daring to wait for any more farewells. I ran in by the back door without looking behind me, and along the passages to the drawing-room. Here, or rather on the verandah outside, mother and father were talking still; and I went to bid them good night too, for I did not want to sit up any longer.
“It’s going to rain at last, daddy,” said I, by way of saying something.