“I know it is, dear. I am sorry I am so foolish; it is because I am so, so lonely, Alick. Oh, so lonely, dear, you can’t think; it is like death—like heart-break. But it is not your fault, dear; I don’t mean that; don’t you think that. You are not to blame, Alick; it is I. But then, dear, think of this, and bear with me a little. I have no one in the wide world but only you; and when you are away all is so still, so silent—oh, so dreary you don’t know. If I only had a mother to turn to when I feel so weak and foolish, and so lonesome—if I could only lay my head down on my mother’s shoulder when you are away, and cry a little I should be better; I should be all right when you should return home. But I have no mother to go to, Alick.”
“If you had she would box your ears for such nonsense; that is, if I remember the old lady rightly,” said Alexander, brutally, as he arose from his chair and walked the room.
But her nervous excitement was now subsiding. Her tears ceased to flow; her sobs were softer. Presently she wiped her eyes, and, smiling like sunshine through raindrops, she said:
“It is all over now, Alick dear, all quite over. It was only a summer gust, dear, and it did me no harm; and you will excuse it this once, Alick?”
“I shall hardly know how to do so if this exhibition is ever to be repeated,” he growled.
“I hope it never will be, Alick,” she said, with a subsiding sigh, as she arose and touched the bell.
“Drusilla, if you knew as much as I do you would very carefully avoid giving me any annoyance,” he said, in so meaning a manner that her hand dropped from the bell-pull, and she turned to him in dismay, and, gazing on him, asked:
“What is it that you know, Alick, dear? Indeed I never wish to annoy you. But what is it you mean, dear?”
“No matter! You will know some day; all too soon whenever that day shall come,” he said, evasively.
“But, Alick dear, you frighten me. Please what is it?”