I fell to wondering how it was that men who all seemed to me good and admirable could differ so very materially; father, the squire, Trayton Harrod—all good in their own way, and none agreeing; father's warmest welcome for a new-comer, who did not really give him what the others did.
Yes, I felt that, although I recognized Frank Forrester's fascination, and declared to myself that he had fascinated, and always would fascinate, my sister Joyce.
She came into the room above my head just as I made this reflection. She was singing to herself. I wondered how it was that she could sing. If she really loved Frank, could she sing like that now that he was away, that she could never see him, never have any news of him? If she really loved Frank? Something that was like an iron hand seemed to grip my heart and turn me sick. Could I have sat there singing to myself when the man I loved was far away? No, I knew that I could not. Even now, I felt as though I should never sing again; never sing again as I had sung that bright May morning when I had raced along the dike with Taff, before I had ever met Trayton Harrod. Yet he was here, within hail; the word that I wanted of him might be spoken any day. Even a week ago, on the sea, under the stars, had it not been near to being spoken?
I was not unhappy, but I could not have sung as Joyce was singing. I kept quite still under the window; I did not want her to know I was there, I did not want to speak to her, I wanted to think.
Involuntarily there came to my mind that time on the cliff, the night before she went away to Sydenham, when I had told her that she was overrating her own strength—that she would never be able to live without Frank. I had not met Trayton Harrod then, but now I knew that what I had said was true: "When a girl loves a man she wants him every minute of her life, and something goes wrong in her heart all the time that she is parted from him."
It would be true for me, but was it true for Joyce? Was it only that we were different?
I sat still and Joyce went on singing. She was singing "Annie Laurie"—one of the songs that I used to please father and the squire with when the long winter evenings made time.
But suddenly she stopped. Some one had come into the room; it was Harrod. I knew it before he spoke. And he did not speak for a long while, for such a long while that I wondered.
"You're not looking well, Miss Maliphant," he said at last. "The heat tells on you."
"Oh, indeed," answered she, in a low voice, "I'm quite well. I never have such a color as Margaret has, you know."