She laughed again.
"They have talked of very little else but you, since you have been gone, and Dick is like a boy who has lost a schoolfellow."
She said it so frankly that Drake's heart sank.
"Well—I've thought—I've missed you—Dick," he said, stumbling over the sentence. "Shorne Mills is, as you said, not the kind of place one forgets in a hurry."
"Did I say that?" she asked. "I don't remember it."
"Ah! but I do," he said. "I remember——"
"Hadn't we better walk on?" she said. "You must be tired, and will be glad of some tea—or something."
He seemed to notice for the first time that they had been standing, and they walked on.
Her heart was still beating fast—beating with a new and strange happiness glowing through her. Only a few minutes ago she had felt so weary and wretched; the familiar scene, which she loved so dearly, had seemed flat and dreary and full of melancholy, and now—oh! how lovely it was! how good it was to look upon!
Why had everything changed so suddenly? Why was every pulse dancing to the subtle music with which the air seemed full?