He made as though to take her hand again, but she shrank, and he fell back. With one hand over her eyes, she felt her way back to her chair.
For five minutes or more she sat crying. Ruston did not move. He had nothing wherewith to console her, and he dared not touch her. Then she looked up.
"If I were dead?" she said.
"Hush! hush! You'd break my heart," he answered in low tones.
In the midst of her weeping, for an instant she smiled.
"Ah, Willie, Willie!" she said; and he knew that she read him through and through, so that he was ashamed to protest again.
She did not believe in that from him.
Presently her sobs ceased, and she crushed her handkerchief into a ball in her hand.
"Well, Maggie?" said he in hard even tones.
She rose again to her feet and came to him.