“And did Redwood save his big shoulders?” she asked.
“Jake!” cried his master reproachfully.
She laughed and sobbed together.
“Frank, will you leave your things here, and come a little way with me, please?”
“O, Audrey! You know—not only a little way, if it could be.”
They walked together along the green bank of the stream, from sunlight into luminous shadow, and forth again, parting the branches sometimes, always with the water, like a merry child, running and talking beside them. Suddenly she stopped, and turned upon him.
“If it could be,” she said, repeating his words: “that is to say, if I had not a murderer for a brother!”
He cried out: “Good God! What do you mean? Hugh is not a murderer!”
“You declare it—in spite of all, Frank?”
“All what? I know him, and that’s enough.”