The squire laughed quietly.
“Better not, you think, Edwin? Well, perhaps so; one can’t be too careful. But I really think you ought to call, Bartley.”
“I will, if you like,” he said, but not very readily. “Shall I, Olivia?”
She turned her pale face slightly toward him.
“I do not care,” she said, and opening the door, went out, and up the stairs to her own room. She stood by the white bed looking dreamily before her for a moment or two, her father’s words echoing dully in her ears; then she remembered why she had come upstairs, and was about to ring for her maid, when a great wave of heat seemed to sweep over her.
“I can’t go back and listen to them talking of him—not just yet, not just yet!” she murmured, putting her hand to her throat. “He has been ill—but what is he to me?” with a dry sob. Her hat and a fur cloak were lying on a chair, and she took them up absently, and putting them on, went down the stairs on to the terrace.
“Just five minutes alone!” she murmured. “Five minutes to think—no, to forget! Oh, if I could forget!” And she beat her hand upon the balustrade. “It would all be so easy if I could forget.”
She stood for a moment or two looking wistfully down into the dusky avenue; then a sudden desire to lose herself in its shade possessed her.
“I’ll go and see Bessie,” she murmured. She had not been near the girl since the engagement, fearing the scrutiny of the simple, loving eyes more than she had dreaded aught else. “Yes, I’ll go and see Bessie!” and she passed down the steps.
As she did so, Bartley Bradstone’s commonplace figure came out by the drawing-room window and stood clearly defined against the light.