"But we were engaged, quite a long time before," she said in idle protest, for something in her seemed hammering at her head, beating into it the knowledge that she had been mean.
Once more he laughed. "May I ask how long?"
"On--on New Year's Day." He could scarcely hear what she said.
"On New Year's Day," he echoed incredulously, "impossible!" Then the conviction that, if this were so, Ted Cruttenden had--well! almost lied to him came to rouse his anger to the uttermost, and he strode towards her shadow. "But this is foolishness," he exclaimed, "You know you love me--you know you do----"
"Hush!" she cried, interrupting his swift rise in tone, "Remember, please, that my grandfather lies dead upstairs."
"Dead!" he said stupidly after a pause, "Dead! I--I didn't know. I--I am very sorry." The conventional words of sympathy came slowly as he stood, feeling baulked indescribably, done out, as it were, of his just claim to anger.
"Are there any more terrors to tell?" he asked at last recklessly. "Do you happen to be dead yourself, or has the 'coo' been killed? I beg your pardon--you won't understand the allusion----" he added hastily, "but I must be excused; there are limits! So, I see; you took me for Ted--for your husband, save the mark! Why isn't he here?--where he ought to be?"
The sudden blame, following her own thought so closely, took Aura all unprepared. The dull grievance which had been hers all those long hours of vain waiting became suddenly acute. She dissolved into young self-pitying tears.
"I don't know," she murmured, strangling her sobs, "and I don't in the least know what to do."
For an instant Ned Blackborough felt inclined to arraign high heaven for thus robbing him of righteous wrath.