“I’ve sent one of the men ahead with the things; but I thought Mrs. Leath might need me.”
“She didn’t ask for you,” he returned, wondering how he could detain her; but she answered decidedly: “I’d better go.”
He held open the door, picked up his umbrella and followed her out. As they went down the steps she glanced back at him. “You’ve forgotten your mackintosh.”
“I sha’n’t need it.”
She had no umbrella, and he opened his and held it out to her. She rejected it with a murmur of thanks and walked on through the thin drizzle, and he kept the umbrella over his own head, without offering to shelter her.
Rapidly and in silence they crossed the court and began to walk down the avenue. They had traversed a third of its length before Darrow said abruptly: “Wouldn’t it have been fairer, when we talked together yesterday, to tell me what I’ve just heard from Mrs. Leath?”
“Fairer——?” She stopped short with a startled look.
“If I’d known that your future was already settled I should have spared you my gratuitous suggestions.”
She walked on, more slowly, for a yard or two. “I couldn’t speak yesterday. I meant to have told you today.”
“Oh, I’m not reproaching you for your lack of confidence. Only, if you had told me, I should have been more sure of your really meaning what you said to me yesterday.”