“Really!” said May. She felt nervous and agitated. Seeing him again so suddenly had brought the past more vividly before her.
“But I have not been wasting my time,” continued Webster, still smiling; “I have been seeing, and with great and sincere pleasure, how much you are improved. The sea air has made a wonderful difference in you.”
“Yes; doesn’t she look well?” said Sister Margaret, proudly.
“Indeed she does. This is a charming day,” went on Webster, looking up at the blue sky, and then down at the blue sea. “It seems like a rest to sit here; a rest from the worries of the world.”
“And have you been very busy?” asked May, half-shyly.
“I always work fairly hard, you know,” answered Webster.
May did not speak again for a few minutes. She was thinking of what she had often thought—how she had been first interested in Webster’s work in the case concerning Kathleen Weir’s diamonds. She was wondering if he ever saw her now—the woman he knew to be John Temple’s wife.
And Webster, watching her delicate profile, almost guessed what was passing in her mind. But he tried to change the current of her thoughts. He pointed out a white-sailed little vessel scudding before the wind; he talked of the sea and of the sky, and May listened, and for the time her troubles faded from her mind.
Suddenly, however, Sister Margaret seemed uneasy, and began to fidget with her silver watch, twice unhooking it from her waistband. She looked at May, but May did not notice her. At last she said, in a slightly marked tone:
“It is a quarter-past one o’clock, Mrs. Church.”