A minute—two minutes—passed. There was no sound but Maggie Dennison's quick breathings; once she started forward with her lips parted as if to speak, and a look of defiance on her face; once too, entreaty, hope, tenderness dawned for a moment. In anger or in sorrow, the truth was hard on being uttered; but the impulse failed. She arrested the words on her lips, and with an angry jerk of her head, said petulantly,
"Oh, you're a silly girl, and you make me silly too. There's nothing the matter. I don't know who it was or what it was. Very likely it was nothing. I heard nothing. It was all your imagination." Her voice grew harder, colder, more restrained as she went on. "Don't think about what I've said to-night—and don't chatter about it. You upset me with your fancies. Marjory, it means nothing."
The last words were imperative in their insistence, but all the answer Marjory made was to raise her head and ask,
"Am I to go?" while her eyes added, too plainly for Maggie Dennison not to read them, "You know the meaning of that."
Under the entreaty and the challenge of her eyes, Mrs. Dennison could not give the answer which it was her purpose to give—the answer which would deny the mad hope that still filled her, the hope which still cried that, though to-night was gone, there was to-morrow. It was the answer she must make to all the world—which she must declare and study to confirm in all her acts and bearing. But there—alone with the girl—under the compelling influence of the reluctant confidence—that impossibility of open falsehood—which the time and occasion seemed strangely to build up between them—she could not give it plainly. She dared not bid the girl stay, with that hope at her heart; she dared not cast away the cloak by bidding her go.
"You must do as you like," she said at last. "I can't help you about it."
Marjory caught at the narrow chance the answer left her; with returning tenderness she stretched out her hands towards her friend, saying,
"Maggie, do tell me! I shall believe what you tell me."
Mrs. Dennison drew back from the contact of the outstretched hands. Marjory rose, and for an instant they stood looking at one another. Then Marjory turned, and walked slowly to the door. To her own room she went, to fear and to hope, if hope she could.
Mrs. Dennison was left alone. The night was far gone, the morning coming apace. Her lips moved, as she gazed from the window. Was it in thanksgiving for the escape of the night, or in joy that the morrow was already to-day? She could not tell; yes, she was glad—surely she was glad? Yet, as at last she flung herself upon her bed, she murmured, "He'll come early to-day," and then she sobbed in shame.