“I’m so sorry,” murmured she.
“Don’t apologize. You may cry over me just as much as you like.”
She laughed a little, and then they went on again, but without exchanging any more looks, until they came suddenly, without having realized that they were so near, to the bottom of the Vicarage hill. He glanced up it, and Olivia caught the expression of his eyes.
“You are not going there—to the Vicarage?” she burst out, impulsively.
“Yes, I am,” he answered, with a dogged look of anger and scorn on his face.
The girl, drawing a long, sobbing breath, retreated a step without speaking.
Vernon stopped and looked into her face almost with the boldness of a lover.
“Why not?” he asked, in a voice little above a whisper.
“Why not, indeed, Mr. Brander!” she said, coldly, but without succeeding in hiding a break in her voice; “if the friends you can’t trust are of more value than those you can.”
“It is not a question of that, Miss Denison.”