“O George,” Dolly was saying, “how frightening the woods are in the half-light! I believe they really are haunted. Why did you dare me to come here?”
“It was you who proposed it,” he answered, shortly.
“Did I?” she replied, looking up at him with innocent eyes. “Well, I’m not really afraid when you are with me. You’re so strong, so protective. I suppose there’s nothing in the world that could frighten you.”
“Not many things,” he agreed, with a brave toss of his head.
She pressed his arm. “You know, that’s what I always missed so much in poor Jim. I could never look to him for protection; I could never lean on him. And, you see, I’m such a little coward, really: you should see me running sometimes from some silly thing that has startled me.”
“My little fawn!” he murmured, lifting her hand to his lips.
Jim’s eyes were wild. “The same old game!” he muttered to himself, as he peered at them between the wet, brown leaves of the bracken.
“You need a man to take care of you,” Merrivall continued. “How long must we wait before we can announce our engagement?”
“You are impatient, George,” she replied. “Even though I never really loved Jim, I feel I ought to give his memory the tribute of the usual year. People who don’t know how he forced me to marry him and how brutally he ill-treated me, would say unkind things if I married you any sooner than that.”