“You won’t stay in that house all winter, will you?” And he spoke of pneumonia, of bronchitis, of rheumatism, with a horrid eloquence. He said that candles often set houses on fire. He pictured such a disaster on a bitter midwinter night.
He spoke of thieves. He went on to escaped lunatics; and when the curtain rose on the third act and showed the Maddened Brute gibbering in a cellar by the light of one candle, she gasped.
“I must speak to Lucy!” she thought. “She’s got to go away!” It was her policy not to interfere with her child, and she had waited very patiently for some word as to what Lucy meant to do with the check. But now she would wait no longer; she would speak to her about going away.
She had no opportunity, though. The young man insisted on taking them all the way back to the cottage.
It did, indeed, look sinister that evening, so small, so lonely under a stormy sky. Mad things could so easily be hiding behind those bushes. Of course they weren’t, but they could.
“You must come in, Mr. Ordway,” said Cousin Winnie.
“Thanks,” he replied. “But—thanks, but I’ve got to go. Only, I wish you’d tell me first that you’ve decided not to stay here this winter.”
“Oh, dear!” said Cousin Winnie, mildly. “I’m sure I can’t.”
“Why don’t you go to Bermuda?” continued the young man. “Or Florida? You—both of you—look pale.”
Although a little tiresome, Cousin Winnie thought the young man’s solicitude rather touching. But Lucy answered him bluntly.