"He doesn't trust himself, and mother—oh!" Her forlorn murmuring ended hopelessly in nothing.
"Mother! Yes! What a lot of things there are to think of! I had just made up my mind to take him right away from all of you, to take him abroad. I could have done it if I'd found him here. Perhaps I could do it still—I wonder?"
Amy shivered uncomfortably under the thoughtful gaze of her companion's eyes.
"I might write letters too—as you used to—and contrive secret meetings. He's said nothing about Miss Thurseley to me—I don't suppose he'd say anything about me to Miss Thurseley. But he'd meet me all the same, I think. That seems to be his way; only before your last visit I didn't know it."
"Indeed he won't think of Mabel—not for a long while. He's so—so broken up."
Winnie raised her brows slightly; she was beginning to form an opinion of her own about that—an opinion not likely to be too generous to Godfrey.
Amy spoke with obvious effort, with an air of shame. "Mother begged and prayed me to—to try and persuade you——" She broke off again.
"To let him alone? I suppose she would. She thinks I've done all the harm? As far as he's concerned, I suppose I have. If we'd gone about it in the ordinary way, he really needn't have suffered at all."
Again came Amy's uncomfortable shiver; she was not at home with steady contemplation of the ways of the world; it had not come across her path any more than love-making had.
"You can tell your mother that I'll let him alone. Then, I hope, she'll get better."