“You are not with the General then?”
“Oh no! Don’t I wish I was!” she added, with an eager lowering of her voice. “But there, I ought not to say that. These are a very kind sort of people, but a trifle ‘heavy.’ I am only travelling with them, not their guest.”
Now what the deuce did Philip care about the estimability or other idiosyncrasies of the people she was travelling with? He saw only her—her as he remembered her in times past—her as he had seen her many a time since, waking and in his dreams—her as he had seen her the first time of all, here on the deck of this very ship. He detected the sympathetic softening of the great grey eyes, the saddened inflection of that voice, the first note of which had thrilled his whole being, and his heart tightened. For, after all, he was young, and, in spite of the blow which had fallen upon his life, all possibilities for him were not dead.
And she? Knowing something of his history since they parted—though not the exact nature of the grim skeleton so carefully kept locked up—knowing something of his history, we say, for the world is small and tongues are long, she felt her heart go out to him as it had never done before, as she never thought possible that it could have done. The sunny laugh had gone out of his face for ever; leaving an expression, a stamp of hopelessness, which to her was infinitely pathetic. It was all that she could do to keep down the rush of tears which welled to her eyes as they looked up into his sad ones. What, we say, did he, did either of them, care about the heaviness or otherwise of the people she was travelling with? Yet of such trivialities will the lips force themselves to chatter while the heart is bursting.
“Where and how is the dear old General now?” he went on. “And your aunt?”
“They have gone to live at a place in the country—a few miles from Rushtonborough. That is near your home, is it not?”
“Yes,” he said eagerly, and the possibilities began to stir around and quicken into life. Then his tone relapsed again. “Do you ever go down there yourself?”
“I haven’t yet. They have only just gone there. And now”—hesitatingly, “I think I must go back to my people. They will be wondering what has become of me.”
“Not yet—Alma.”
The pleading tone melted her not very strongly formed resolution. She paused. The end of the saloon hid them effectually, though, of course, they only held this snug corner to themselves on the precarious tenure of chance.