"I—I don't know," Hazel murmured, truthfully enough. "Won't you please come to the house?"
For a moment they stood thus, regarding one another in silence: the brown eyes still in wistful questioning, the manly blue-grey ones half-angry, half-sad, wholly puzzled.
"I think not to-day," he said at last. Raising his cap, he turned upon his heel, and, retracing his steps, was soon lost in the shadow of the wood.
CHAPTER XVI
Two days later, at the same hour, Paul Charteris was seated in Helen's drawing-room.
"She is so young," Helen was pleading; "such a child."
Paul sat in silence, big, manly, and troubled withal.
"I feel such an unutterable brute to speak to you about it," he returned at length. "If you knew how I have struggled to keep it to myself; but it is too much, it goes beyond my strength."
He groaned, turning his eyes from the delicate face, in remorse at the conflicting emotions he had raised.
If only Hubert Le Mesurier were alive! There would be nothing about which to hesitate; they would talk as man to man. But the widowed Helen, so gentle, so defenceless, seeking only what was best for her child. What a brute he was! And yet, speak he must: he could no longer contain himself. He knew well enough that the next time he encountered Hazel alone he must demand an explanation of her strange manner towards himself. He felt it was highly improbable he could see Hazel without opening his heart to her. It was but right to warn Helen as to how things stood with him: it had become essential that Helen should be told all there was to tell.