“I have a great idea of unsophisticated innocence, village simplicity, and all that, Miss Zana, but really permit me to doubt if Miss Cora Clark makes you the confidant of her little love affairs.”
“She has none, she never had,” I exclaimed, with jealous anger.
He laughed again. The sound stung me like an arrow. I turned away, sprang over the wall, and walked along the footpath back to the parsonage. My progress grew slower and slower as I fell into thought, for a remembrance of the change in Cora’s manner oppressed me. I came in sight of the parlor window. The glow of Cora’s golden hair shone through the dusky green of the ivy leaves as she leaned out, shading her eyes with one hand as if to be certain that she saw aright. She drew back, and directly after I caught a glimpse of some male figure gliding around a corner of the church rapidly, as if to avoid observation. The figure was too slight for Mr. Clark, and at first I strove to convince myself that it might be Upham himself, who had outwalked me, concealed by a hedge that ran near and parallel with the footpath; but I cast the suspicion from me. The coldness which had uniformly marked his acquaintance with my beautiful girl forbade it.
I entered the little parlor, panting, but resolute. Cora rose to receive me, a good deal flushed, and with a look about the eyes as if she had been agitated and weeping. She did not ask the reason of my sudden return, but fixed her blue eyes with a look of affright on my face, as if prepared for, and dreading what I was about to say.
At the time, this did not strike me, but in after days I remembered it well.
“Cora,” I said, disarmed by the look of trouble on her sweet face—“Cora, my sister, tell me, who was it that just left you?”
“Why do you ask?—No one—no one has left the cottage. You—you found me alone!”
“And have you been alone all the time since I went away?” I inquired.
“I—I—not quite, my father was here. But why do you ask such questions?”
Her eyes filled, and her sweet lips began to tremble, as they always did when grieved, since she was a little child.