His smile passed, and again his face was hard with the hardness of the fighter. “There is no debt that I can see,” he said. “We are all at the mercy of circumstance. If it comes to that, we owed it to ourselves to do what we could for you.”
It was brusquely spoken, but his look, grim though it was, seemed to her to hold a hint of friendliness. The dog Roger, who had entered behind him, came nosing up to the bedside and she slipped her hand free to fondle him. There was something in this man’s personality that embarrassed her, wherefore she could not have said.
Roger acknowledged her attention with humble effusion, glancing apologetically towards his master the while.
“You are very kind to put it like that,” she said at last, as he stood immovably beside her. “But I can’t bear to be a burden upon anyone—especially—especially——”
“Especially what?” he said.
She answered with difficulty. “Especially people who have to work as hard as you do.”
“People in our walk of life, do you mean?” he said, and she heard the echo of a sneer behind the words.
“Arthur, you are not to make her talk,” said Dolly severely. “She had a temperature yesterday all through over-excitement and fretting, and it throws her back at once. Will you please move the bed and go?”
She spoke with her habitual decision, and Frances was aware of a strong resemblance between the brother and sister as Arthur turned to comply. She herself was near to tears, such was her weakness and distress of mind, and while her bed was being moved across to the window she could not look at either of them. But when the move was at length satisfactorily effected and she could gaze forth over the dewy sunlit fields, she commanded herself sufficiently to utter a low word of thanks.
He came back to her then, and stood beside her. “You are most welcome at Tetherstones,” he said. “Please don’t talk of debts and burdens! They don’t come into the reckoning here.”