"An unexpected guest, I can claim no welcome," he says, looking at her almost wistfully.
"But you are as welcome as unexpected," Honor answers, holding her hand and smiling graciously.
He barely touches the slim white fingers; he looks away from her, as if the sight of her beauty pained him.
Belle has disappeared; they can hear her singing as she flits between the great tree-trunks, a dainty figure in her gay print gown.
"You have been ill again?" Honor says gently. She is feverishly excited, but no one could imagine that from her manner. Her voice trembles a little, but that is the only sign she gives of the tumultuous emotion that the sight of this man has roused in her.
And she thought she had forgotten him—that if he never came to Donaghmore it would not matter in the least. His scornful words had hurt her cruelly; she had never forgiven them, and he knew that she had not.
Though she had been so kind to him all those weeks that he lay hovering between life and death he had not been deceived. He left Donaghmore fully conscious that he was not forgiven.
But that did not trouble him. He had been strong in his resentment then; he had judged her, and disapproved of her in his calm judicial way, and there was an end of it.
"I've had a nasty touch of low-fever, that is all."
"And you never let us know!"