Gavan nodded.
“But why, if it’s not bad news?”
After a pause he said, and she knew, with all the pain of it, what the relief of speaking must be: “I guess at things. I always feel if she is hiding things.”
“Perhaps you are only imagining.”
“I wish I could think it; but I know not. I know what is happening to her.”
He was still wrenching away at the heather, tossing aside the purple sprays with their finely tangled sandy roots. Suddenly he put his head on his knees, hiding his face.
“Oh, Gavan! Oh, don’t be so unhappy,” Eppie whispered, drawing near him, helpless and awe-struck.
“How can I be anything but unhappy when the person I care most for is miserable—miserable, and I am so far from her?” His shoulders heaved; she saw that he was weeping.
Eppie, at first, gazed, motionless, silent, frozen with a child’s quick fear of demonstrated grief. A child’s quick response followed. Throwing her arms around him, she too burst into tears.
It was strange to see how the boy’s reserves melted in the onslaught of this hot, simple sympathy. He turned to her, hiding his face on her shoulder, and they cried together.