She starts guiltily. For the first time in her life, the life devoted to him, she has forgotten her father.
"Do not fret about him. He shall go with us; he shall belong as much to me as to you. What! do you think I would separate you——."
They sit hand in hand for—how long? At last he tears himself away.
"Remember, dearest!" are his last words. "Send to me directly—the moment—you reach London. And, Leslie, fear nothing! Why, when one thinks of it," and he laughs, "what is there to fear?"
He is gone at last. She stands and watches him as he makes his way—with many a backward glance—along the quay; then she sinks on to the rock again.
Her heart is throbbing, a mist is floating before her eyes; she cannot think, cannot see. So unconscious of everything around her is she that, when half an hour later the dark, graceful figure of a woman passes near her nook, she does not heed or notice it. She is in Love's land, and rapt in Love's dream.
CHAPTER XIX.
FINETTA'S WAY.
After a time Leslie got up, but she wanted to be alone a little longer; she felt that she could not talk even to her father just then; she wanted to be alone to think over all Yorke had told her. She walked a few yards toward the quay, and saw that Mr. Lisle was still painting; then she turned, and slowly paced in the direction of Ragged Point, which stretched out dark and sullen in the sunlight.