“I told you,” she reminded him reproachfully, “at Brackenhurst. Behind Beech Hill.”
“Brackenhurst! I didn’t know you said Brackenhurst. Why, I live at Brackenhurst,” he informed her.
“Oh! Then I’ll see you again.” There was most flattering satisfaction in her voice.
He continued, unheeding—
“Funny I haven’t run across you before now. Of course—you only came in May. And we were at the Lakes all the hols. What did you say was your grandfather’s name?”
“Gran’papa. Gran’papa Valentine.”
“Not old Valentine of Green Gates? Oh, then you’re one of the new grandchildren! Of course. Oh, I know all about you now. But I thought—didn’t some one say——?” Before he realized that he must check himself he had blurted out his perplexity. “But I thought your mother was dead.” Then, horrified at himself—“that is—I mean to say—of course it can’t be the same——” and so stopped helplessly.
She made no reply: gave no sign at all that she had even heard him: only leant motionless against the wall of hay as if some heavy, invisible blow had pinned her there. And he, pitying her, swearing at himself for his inadvertence, sat uncomfortably through the silence that had fallen upon them, fidgeting with his pockets, wishing that he could think of something to say to her.
He began at last, tentatively, ingratiatingly—
“I say, Laura! I say——”