"I did not know that you were a gardener," he said, coldly.
He looked at her standing there with that unnatural brightness on her cheeks, that wild glitter in her eyes, and it seemed to him that she had only come out in her beauty and unconcern, to mock him after the long night of wild trouble which he had spent.
"I know that is what Jones said," she went on. "He thought in the spring something could be done, but not now."
He was turning away—that action deprived her of all self-control—she caught his arm, crying:
"Don't touch that tree—don't go near it."
He stopped and looked at her in blank amazement; she saw the danger in which her impetuosity had placed her—dropped his arm and tried to appear composed again.
"What is the matter with you?" he asked. "The tree is not a human being that I am going to assassinate."
She forced herself to laugh; even then the woman's self-mastery was something astounding.
"I was a little theatrical," she said; "but I can't bear to have the old tree touched."
"Why, marm, it'll die if it ain't," put in Jarvis, who considered that he had been silent quite long enough.