“My letter?” Pearse looked foolish.
“Yes,” nodding her head seriously. “It was an awfully good letter, Pearse—sort of noble—but it scared me, too. I was hardly hoping you would speak to me if you met me on the street over here. It was such a relief to have you ask me to dance to-night—as though we were really friends, after all.”
“Oh, come, Hilda—it wasn’t as bad as all that, was it?” he pleaded.
“Or worse.” Her delicate, three-cornered face was all eyes. She caught her breath and took the plunge. “And—and I hadn’t heard then, didn’t know till late this afternoon—about—about your going to Galveston.”
That was as far as she could trust her voice. A curious darkening of everything—darting lights in it that were like pain. Pearse’s voice speaking swiftly.
“Oh, that’ll be all off—now I’ve seen you.”
What did that mean? What could it mean? Had she heard it right? Yes, for he was going on:
“Couldn’t drive me out of Encinal County—while you’re in it, Hilda. Remember those days in your old cyclone cellar at the Sorrows? I’ll never forget them—that’s certain.”
He would never forget. Ah, but he’d not reminded her of them before with such glowing eyes, spoken of them in such a tone!
“But you were going to Galveston to be—” she couldn’t finish. The words, “to be married,” just wouldn’t come. Pearse didn’t seem to notice. He was all taken up with her—with the fact that they were sitting there together on the porch edge, people all around, but no one paying any attention to them.