She was very faithful to the shabby household at Downport. Her letters were never careless or behind time, and no one was ever neglected in the multiplicity of messages. She would be the most truthful and faithful of loving women a few years hence, this handsome Theodora. There was some reserve in her manner toward Denis this evening. She attended to Miss Elizabeth's octagon-stitch, and left him to amuse Priscilla. He had not seemed very much pleased to see her in the morning, and besides, Priscilla was plainly his business. But when the carriage was announced, and she returned to the parlor, after an absence of a few minutes, drawing on her gloves, and buttoning her pretty jacket close up to her beautiful slender, dusky throat, Denis took his hat and accompanied her to the carriage. He did not wait for the footman this time; but, after assisting her to get in, closed the door himself, and leaned against the open window for a moment.
"I want you to deliver a message to Lady Throckmorton for me," he said. "May I trouble you, Theodora?"
She bent her head with an unpleasantly-quickened heart-beat. It was very foolish, of course, but she felt as if something painful was going to happen, and nothing on earth could prevent it.
"Business has unexpectedly called me away from London—from England," he explained, in a strange yet quite steady voice. "I am obliged to go to Belgium at once, and my affairs are in such a condition that I may be compelled to remain across the channel for some time. Be good enough to say to Lady Throckmorton that I regret deeply that I could not see her before going; but—but the news has been sudden, and my time is fully occupied; but I will write to her from my first stopping-place."
"I will tell her," said Theodora.
"Thank you," he replied, courteously, and then, after a short hesitation, began again, in the tone he used so often—the tone that might be jest or earnest. "And now, there is something else, a subject upon which I wish to ask your unbiased opinion, my dear Theodora, before I say good-bye. When a man finds himself in a danger with which he cannot combat, and remain human—in danger, where defeat means dishonor, do you not agree with me, that the safest plan that man can adopt is to run away?"
Her quickened heart might almost have been running a life-and-death race with her leaping pulse, but she answered him almost steadily.
"Yes," she said to him. "You are quite right. He had better go away."
"Thank you," he returned again. "Then you will give me your hand and wish me God-speed; and, perhaps—I say perhaps—you will answer me another question. This morning, when you spoke to me through the carriage window, you began to say something about being glad. Were you going to say—" He broke off here, sharply. "No!" he exclaimed. "I will not ask you."
"I was going to say that I was glad to see you," Theo interrupted, gravely. "I was glad to see you. And now, perhaps, you had better tell the coachman to drive on. I will deliver your message to Lady Throckmorton; and as I shall not see you again, unless I am here in July—of course you will come back then—good-bye, Mr. Oglethorpe."