'What will you do when he is gone?' he asked abruptly.
'Do? I don't know—I have not thought. I shall stay at Newnham, I suppose, two years; I shall not be able to afford three; and then—and then I shall go out as a governess.'
'You shall never go out as a governess!' said Edgell with an oath.
Lucy looked at him, frightened and bewildered; she couldn't think what he meant, and then she broke down and began to cry.
'Dear Miss Rae—Lucy!' he said, and then he stopped and looked at the girl. He would have liked to take her in his arms, but there were several Newnham girls all hurrying down the road, and they looked at him, and they looked at Lucy. Some of them blushed, and some turned pale, and all were shocked. It was a dreadful precedent.
The atmosphere of Newnham revived Lucy, and she paused at the gate and looked up into his face with a little white smile.
'I am very stupid,' she said, 'but the Master frightened me so much, and I am not quite myself.'
He held her hand longer than he need have done, and he looked down into the small white face with a smile of ownership and protection that was quite new to Lucy. Nobody had ever looked in her eyes like that before, and, instead of drawing her hand away, Lucy hung her head and blushed like a poppy.
'Shall I bring you word how the Master is the first thing in the morning?' he said, still holding her hand; 'how early will you be out in the lane if I come?'
'Oh, as early as you like; seven o'clock!'