“Lisbeth,” she said, “you never told me much about your acquaintance with Hector Anstruthers. I wonder how it was. You knew him very well, it seems.”
“I wish,” broke out Lisbeth, almost angrily, “that I had never known him at all.”
The faithful heart, beating in the breast of the girl at her side, leaped nervously.
“It was Lisbeth,” said she to herself. “It was Lisbeth.”
“I wish,” repeated Lisbeth, frowning at the sea, “that I had never seen him.”
“Why?” was Georgie’s quiet question.
“Because—because it was a bad thing for us both,” in greater impatience than ever.
Georgie looked up at her sadly.
“Why, again?” she ventured, in her soft voice. She could not help it.
But for a moment Lisbeth did not answer. She had risen, and stood leaning against the rock, a queer look on her face, a queer darkening in her eyes. At length she broke into a little, hard laugh, as if she meant to defy herself to be emotional.