"Agatha!" she called. Agatha looked up. "After all, I was wrong.... I have a heart.... if only for you!"
The little fair, merry face was pale now, and tears lay heavily within her blue eyes. Agatha, startled, gazed at her, but there was no time for more. The ponies where trotting up the tiny avenue, and Elfrida did not look back.
CHAPTER XX
On each side of her rose banks, filled with glorious colourings. Autumn, always so rich in variety, was painting everything with a lavish hand—all the tints were gorgeous, splendid, ripe. She stopped for a moment to gather some berries from the blackberry bushes, that were now laden with ebony fruit, and whose luscious darkness was well thrown out by the pale green clumps of the hart's-tongue ferns that grew beneath them.
Presently she turned the corner and came within sight of the river. It was running very swiftly to-day, being swollen by all the rain that fell last night; and leaves from the trees, yellow and red and green, were swirling down it, in the rays of a mad, hot sun.
She found her own nook at last, and sat down beneath a huge beech-tree, through the branches of which the light played merrily. She flung off her hat, as though glad to feel the air upon her forehead. One could hardly believe summer was gone and autumn well advanced. Far away in the wood on the other side the solitary figure of an old woman picking sticks, with a scarlet kerchief bound around her head, made a spot in the picture.
Agatha sat down and let her head fall into her hands. She knew now—now that she was at last alone—how badly she had been wanting to cry all these long, long hours. The tears ran down her cheeks and through her clasped fingers. She was so alone— so utterly alone!
A gentle hand was laid upon her shoulder. She started violently and looked up, to find Dillwyn looking down at her.
"What is it?" asked he softly.
"Oh, nothing—nothing!" cried she hurriedly. "Nothing, really." She rose quickly to her feet and tried to smile.