“My dear little girl,—not mention Jack? Why, how can we talk at all, without mentioning baby?”
“You and Eve keep bringing him into every conversation, because you think it will have an influence—make me give up Ferdie. Nothing will make me give up Ferdie. So you need not talk of baby any more.”
The judge looked at her with eyes of despair.
Cicely went on. “No; it is not his illness that made Ferdie tell me to stay here. He has some other reason. And I am afraid.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I don’t know,—that is the worst of it! Since his letter, I have imagined everything. I cannot bear it any longer; you must take me to him to-morrow, or I shall start by myself; I could easily do it, I could outwit you twenty times over.”
“Outwit? You talk in that way to me?”
Cicely watched him as his face quivered, all his features seeming to shrink together for an instant. “I suppose I seem selfish, grandpa.” She threw out her hands with sudden passion. “I don’t want to be, I don’t mean to be! It is you who are keeping me here. Can’t you see that I must go? Can’t you?”
“Why no, I can’t,” said the old man, terrified by her vehemence.
“There’s no use talking, then.” She left him, and went back through the woods towards the tents.