"Well? May I be so bold as to inquire what interest you may have in my personal affairs, Miss Webb? Frankly, I am at a loss to understand the meaning of this unexpected, and—I might say—somewhat unusual visit."
"I ... I don't know as I can explain," began Rose, hesitantly. "I ... I felt that I had to see you, because ... I had a letter yesterday from ... from Dr. MacDonald...."
"Ah."
"Of course he writes to me, you know that he is my guardian," she answered the interruption with a flash of spirit. "He said in it that he was coming home just as soon as he was able to ... to get well and ... be married, and then that paper.... Oh, Miss Treville, surely it isn't so. You wouldn't throw him over, when he is so far away, and ... and sick?"
The other's voice was not quite as steady as before, when she answered, "I don't see why I am called upon to explain my ... to explain anything to you, Miss Webb."
"Then it is true." The sentence rang out sharply. "And he doesn't know. He thinks that you are waiting, and ..."
"We need not discuss the matter, in fact I doubt if the doctor would appreciate your ... shall we say 'championage'? The matter is between him and me, wholly."
"No, it is not, Miss Treville," flared Rose, with the angry color at last flooding her cheeks. "I have heard people say that, if that story is true, he is lucky to have escaped marrying you; but, just the same, those of us who really love him—you needn't look like that, of course I love him—don't want to have him hurt, as any man would be who was cast off like an old glove while he was far away and had no chance to speak for himself. That is why I hoped it wasn't true, and that you hadn't, perhaps, killed his faith in my kind. And that is the only reason."
Once started, her words had poured out as hot as lava which had broken from a pent-up volcano.
"So, that is the reason, the only reason, for your coming to me with your impertinent question?" Miss Treville laughed oddly. "Really! Do you know, I have always suspected that the little savage whom he brought from somewhere in the backwoods regarded him as rather more than a guardian, or a brother ... that was the pretty fiction, wasn't it?" she added, with honey coating the vinegar in her speech.