He paused in embarrassment, remembering Adrian’s protest how gladly he would see his brother make her the chatelaine of Duciehurst,—oh, dreams, dreams!—all shattered and gone!
“Did he—did he, really?”
She lifted her eyes, swimming with tears and irradiated with smiles, that seemed to shine in the dull twilight.
“Oh, how I treasure the words!” Then after a long pause—“I was afraid to speak to you, Randal. I do everything wrong!”
“You? You do everything right,” he declared.
“I am all impulse, you know,” she explained.
“Which is so much better than being all design,” he interpolated.
“And so I speak without consideration, and might—might hurt people’s feelings.”
“Never—never in the world,” he insisted.
“I am so glad you forgive it, if it is intrusiveness. But I am staying down here at my aunt’s; she has been very ill. And I have so longed to say just one word to you—to call you by telephone—or,—something. I would see your solitary light burning across the lake, so late, so late—you know we have been watchers here, too,—and I would think of you, shut in with your sorrow, and no human pity can comfort you. So I could only send my prayers for you. Did you feel my prayers?”