“Why do I live like a hermit and a recluse?” he said, gently. “We have some of us ceased to be masters of our own actions, Miss Vanley; I am so unlucky as to be one of those unfortunates.”
She looked up at him with the timid, shrinking glance of a woman whose heart aches with sympathy, and yet who has not power to give it.
“If I—if my father—could do anything,” she murmured.
He held out his hand and took hers, and he held it, not pressing it, but enfolding it in his strong, shapely one.
“You have done much already,” he said, in a low voice, “more than you can guess; yes, much more. Good-night, Miss Vanley.”
Obeying an impulse, one of those impulses which were rare with her, she raised her beautiful eyes to his.
“That is my aunt’s title,” she said, with a faint, flickering smile. “My name is Olivia.”
He looked at her for a moment gravely, and yet with a sort of troubled wistfulness; then he said, in as low tone as hers:
“Olivia! Good-night, Miss Olivia!”
Then he called to Bertie, waving his hand toward Olivia, and turning aside, strode into the dark lane that led to The Dell.