He crossed the threshold, and then she saw that he had a letter in his hand. Something in the look of it made her heart beat. She pushed open the door of the sitting-room and went in before him.
“I come across a little maid down at the foot of the ’ill,” said he, closing the door after him, “and she asted me if I was a-comin’ up to the farm. I don’t know how she guessed I might be, but she said I was to give ye this ’ere letter ’cos she’d got to go to school, and she’d come up in the arternoon for the penny.”
Bess held out a trembling hand and he put the letter into it.
“But it ain’t for you, are it?” said he, puzzled.
There did not seem to be much blood in the whole of the girl’s body before, but all there was rushed to her face now; her eyes shone and a faint smile flickered across her lips.
“Yes, yes,” murmured she, forgetting caution in her joy; “it’s for me!”
She did not open it, she held it in her hand gazing at it. She knew well enough what it said—it said that he was there, waiting for her, coming to her, loving her: the knowledge that she had it to read when she liked was enough.
“You’re never ’vertising for a situation,” said Preston, aghast, “and your father so well to do!”
The words recalled her to herself.
“No, no,” she said quickly. “O’ course not.”