“Oh!” she said, “it is no use to give way to this sort of headache; it's only one's wretched nerves.”
“Well, take carte of yourself,” he said, kissing her. “I believe you are worn out with all these weeks of attendance on a cantankerous old father.”
She laughed and brightened up, going out with him to the head of the stairs, and returning to watch him from the window. Just as he left the door of the hotel, a small child fell face downward on the pavement on the opposite side of the road and began to cry bitterly. Raeburn crossed over and picked up the small elf; they could hear him saying: “There, there, more frightened than hurt, I think,” as he brushed the dust from the little thing's clothes.
“How exactly like father!” said Erica, smiling; “he never would let us think ourselves hurt. I believe it is thanks to him that Tom has grown up such a Stoic, and that I'm not a very lachrymose sort of being.”
A little later they started for church, but toward the end of the Psalms Donovan felt a touch on his arm. He turned to Erica; she was a white as death, and with a strange, glassy look in her eyes.
“Come,” she said in a hoarse whisper, “come out with me.”
He thought she felt faint, but she walked steadily down the aisle. When they were outside she grasped his arm and seemed to make a great effort to speak naturally.
“Forgive me for disturbing you,” she said, “but I have such a dreadful feeling that something is going to happen. I feel that I must go to my father.”
Donovan thought that she was probably laboring under a delusion. He knew that she was always very anxious about her father and that Ashborough, owing to various memories, was exactly the place where this anxiety would be likely to weigh upon her. He thought, too, that Raeburn was very likely right and that she was rather overdone by the strain of those long weeks of solitary attendance. But he was much too wise to attempt to reason away her fears; he knew that nothing but her father's presence would set her at rest, and they walked as fast as they could to the Town Hall. He was just turning down a street which led into the High Street when Erica drew him instead in the direction of a narrow byway.
“Down here,” she said, walking straight on as though she held some guiding clew in her hand.