There came one evening when Tom Gatliffe sat in his garden a prey to most anxious thoughts. The sun was setting, and the birds were singing in the green depths of the trees.
He had returned home that evening, and had found Aveline with a sad pale face standing listlessly at the cottage window.
The smile that usually greeted him was absent from her pale face.
He loved her too fondly to offer any remonstrance—he went up to her and embraced her tenderly.
She appeared listless and abstracted, and took but little notice of his endearments.
He was pained and troubled, and said, after a pause—
“My dear, you don’t appear to be well. Are you poorly?”
“No—oh, dear, no,” she exclaimed, flinging her arms round his neck, with a low passionate cry, and hiding her face against his shoulder.
“I am sure you are not well,” he repeated. “Something’s the matter.”
“There is nothing the matter—nothing at all. What puts such a thought into your head? You seem to have such strange fancies.”