They went into the park and sat down on two chairs that faced the stream of carriages and had rhododendrons behind them. When they sat down, Christina's head swam so giddily that she feared she might be going to faint. She closed her eyes for a moment, mastering her weakness with a desperate effort. Dick did not notice her pallor. "You see," he said, leaning forward and boring small holes in the gravel with the point of his stick—"You see,—I think I must tell you—ask you for your advice—because you know Milly so much better than any one else in the world. You can tell me if I'm mistaken—or advise me what to do, you know. It's just this: I thought, when I first came home, that Milly had begun to care for me again—or, at all events, that she'd got over disliking me."
"Care for you? Dislike you?" Christina murmured vaguely. "Oh—I don't think it was ever that—of late years—since you'd so tactfully and charmingly understood and made everything so easy for her."
"No. Yes; it seemed she'd particularly got over it," Dick, rather puzzled, assented. "And I mean, by caring, that she seemed so happy when I was there—at first, happier than I'd ever known her."
"She can dare to be happy with you now, you see; just because you have made her so secure."
"So secure?"
"Yes," Christina met his eyes. "So sure that you'll never ask anything of her, make anything difficult for her again."
Dick Quentyn grew red. "I never did do that, as far as I remember, after I understood."
"That is what Milly so deeply appreciates," Christina returned.
There was a little silence after this and Christina, in it, controlled her breaths from trembling. Then Dick, groping painfully among his impressions, put forward another. "She did mind, very much, my being in danger last winter; you told me that. She was worried, really worried about me?"
Like a hurried, jangling bell somewhere in the background of her mind Christina, as she, too, gathered together her impressions and memories, seemed to hear a reiterated "No lies; above all, no lies." But he had put the weapon into her hand, and though she felt as if she held it lifted above some innocent life, it fell relentlessly.