“I’m a brute to bother you about it,” Paul went on. “But I have always felt sure that you did more that night than you have ever acknowledged; Cicely couldn’t tell us, you see, because she had fainted. How strange you look! Are you ill?”
“It is nothing. Let us walk on.”
“As you please.”
“If they go to South America, why shouldn’t you go with them?” he said, after a while, returning to his first topic. “You will have to go if you want to keep a hold on Jack, for Cicely will never give him up to you for good and all, as you have hoped. If you were with them, I should feel a great deal safer.”
Well, that was something. Was this, then, to be her occupation for the future—by a watch over Ferdie, to make his brother more comfortable? She tried to give a sarcastic turn to this idea. But again the feeling swept over her: Oh, if it had only been any one but Ferdinand Morrison!—Ferdinand Morrison!
“How you shuddered!” said Paul. Walking beside her, he had felt her tremble. “You certainly are ill.”
“No. But don’t let us talk of any of those things to-day, let us forget them.”
“How can we?”
“I can!” The color rose suddenly in her cheeks; for the moment she was beautiful. “My last walk with him! When he is gone, the days will be a blank.”
—“It is my last walk with you!” she said aloud, pursuing the current of her thoughts.