Harold drew a long breath which hung suspended in his lungs. His eye was fixed on the eyes of the girl in a long glance of sheer astonishment, and hers were not withdrawn. At last—
"God forgive us all!" he said. "And do you forgive me?"
Evie got up quickly, with a glowing face.
"Forgive you? What is there for which I can forgive you, Lord Vail?" she said. "And I honour you for your championship of your kinsman, who has suffered, as I believe, unmeritedly and most cruelly," and her heart spoke the words which her lips framed.
They walked back in silence toward the house, for to each the moment was too good to spoil by further speech, and the silence was spontaneous and desired, the distance of the poles away from awkwardness. To Harry, at any rate, it seemed too precious to risk of it the loss of a moment; he would not have opened his lips, except that one word should issue therefrom, for all his Luck could bring him, and that word he dared not utter yet; he scarcely even knew if, so to speak, it was there yet. And in Evie the triumph of her just speech over a more conventional reticence filled her with a deep and secret joy. She ought to have said what she had said, she could have said no less, and she felt it in every beat and leaping pulse of her body. The recognised and proper reserve of a girl to a young man meant to her at that moment less than nothing; her words, she knew, had put her on to a new and more intimate footing with him, but she could not have spoken otherwise, or have spoken not at all. She had said what was due from one human being, be he boy or girl, or man or woman, to another human being, king or peasant. She had said no more than she need, but, humanly speaking, she could not have said less. The thing had been well done.
But just before they reached the lawn again she spoke.
"My mother, of course, told me the story," she said. "I asked her for the name of—for your uncle's name, but she would not tell me. It is better," and again her blood spoke, "it is better thus."
Next moment they turned the corner, and found the party as they had left it, for they had been gone scarcely ten minutes. Mrs. Antrobus was lighting one cigarette from the stump of another.