“I am rather tired.—Is your father in?”
“Papa?” She looked up in surprise. “He went to town yesterday. Don’t you remember?”
“Of course—I’d forgotten. You’re alone, then?” She dropped his arm and stood before him. He was very pale now, with the furrowed look of extreme physical weariness.
“Denis—are you ill? Has anything happened?”
He forced a smile. “Yes—but you needn’t look so frightened.”
She drew a deep breath of reassurance. He was safe, after all! And all else, for a moment, seemed to swing below the rim of her world.
“Your mother—?” she then said, with a fresh start of fear.
“It’s not my mother.” They had reached the terrace, and he moved toward the house. “Let us go indoors. There’s such a beastly glare out here.”
He seemed to find relief in the cool obscurity of the drawing-room, where, after the brightness of the afternoon light, their faces were almost indistinguishable to each other. She sat down, and he moved a few paces away. Before the writing-table he paused to look at the neatly sorted heaps of wedding-cards.
“They are to be sent out to-morrow?”