"Come! let us run. It will take off the stiffness and keep us both warm." So hand in hand, like a couple of children, they ran through the autumn woods, startling the roe deer from the oak coverts, and the sea-gulls from the little sheltered bays. Hand in hand, while the shadows darkened and the gold in the west faded to grey. Warm, human hand in hand, confident, content in their companionship, and seeking nothing more than that confidence, that content.
"I don't think you'll take cold," said Paul, with the blood tingling in his veins, and his breath coming fast.
"I don't think I shall," she laughed.
[CHAPTER XXII.]
But the remembrance of that thoughtless run through the darkening woods seemed incredible--to the girl, at least--when next morning her companion in it came down, as in duty bound, to inquire after the result of her wetting, for he was palpably conventional and commonplace. Partly because Lady George accompanied him, eager to renew her protestations of gratitude, and partly because it was his way whenever he had made any special departure from the ordinary line of conduct, which he laid down for himself. This evident artificiality had the effect of producing the same sort of unreality in Marjory, so that the only straightforward part of the interview came from Lord George, who, with an odd little quake in his voice, thanked her for the fact that Blazes was at the present moment rehearsing the scene in the nursery.
"You should see the little beggar," he said. "'Pon my word he doesn't seem to have missed a single detail. Has Sam to the life, and we have been obliged to forbid Alice's screams; they were heard all over the house."
"And what does he say was his own part in the business?" asked Marjory. "All I remember is a face--very like yours, Lord George--with great wide eyes, while Eve and Adam were hiding theirs."
Lord George gave another odd little sound between a laugh and a sob. "He says he sate still and swore, like Uncle Paul!"
"I'm afraid I did, Miss Carmichael," confessed the culprit, with a flash of the old manner; "but really, the tangle that young idiot had got things into, and stramash----" He turned to the window with a frown, and looked out. "You are the heroine of the hour, I see," he added cynically. "There is the Manse machine, with your two devoted admirers in it, come to congratulate you. Blanche, if you have induced Miss Carmichael to dine with us to-night--our last night--we had better quit the court. By the way, Mrs. Vane desired me to say, Miss Carmichael, that she did not intend to leave Gleneira without seeing you again; so, as she is not well enough to come to the Lodge, you may be induced to take pity on her."
The covert implication that some such inducement was necessary to overcome her reluctance, stung the girl's pride, without her recognising the cause of it, and she accepted the invitation hurriedly, telling herself she was glad it was the last, and that after to-morrow she could return to the old peaceful days. The thought made her turn with a quick expansion of face and manner to the two old men who advanced to meet them, as she accompanied Lady George to the garden-gate. Two old men almost tremulous with pride and delight.