“You have not spoken—to him yet.”
“No; he had gone when I returned last night. I was glad of it.”
We stood face to face looking at one another in silence. The faint color was coming and going in her cheeks, and her hands were nervously clasping the back of a chair. Where she stood the few days of wintry sunlight which had found their way into the room were merciless to her. They showed up the little streaks of grey in her hair and the hollows in her cheeks. The lines of acute and bitter heartpain were written into her worn face. My heart grew soft for the first time. She had suffered. Here was a broken life indeed. Her dark, weary eyes were raised eagerly to mine, yet I could not offer her what I knew so well she desired.
I was forced to speak. Her silence was charged with eloquent questioning.
“Won’t you—give me a little time to realize what you have told me?” I said, hesitatingly. “I have grown so used to think that Alice’s mother was mine—that she was dead—that I cannot realize this all at once. I don’t want to be cruel, but one has instincts and feelings, and one can’t always control them. I must wait.”
So I went away, and in the Vicarage lane I met Bruce Deville walking towards me with his horse’s bridle through his arm. He was carrying a fragrant bunch of violets, which he held out a little awkwardly.
“I don’t know whether you will care for these,” he said; “I don’t know much about flowers myself. The gardener told me they were very fine, so I thought you may as well have them as——”
“As let them spoil,” I laughed. “Thank you very much, Mr. Deville. They are beautiful.”
He frowned for a moment, and then, meeting my eye, laughed.
“I am afraid I am awfully clumsy,” he said, shortly. “Let me tell you the truth. I went all through the houses to see if I could find anything fit to bring you, and I knew you preferred violets.”