"I was only one of the company," he answered, abashed, "and obeyed orders. Of course a man obeys orders."
CHAPTER XX.
When he took her hand to assist her to rise he felt it tremble in his own.
"It was not a pleasant story," he said. "I ought not to have told it to you."
They scarcely spoke at all as they descended. He did not understand his own unreasoning happiness. What reason was there for it, after all? If he had argued the matter, he was in the mood to have said that what he gained in the strange sweetness of the flying moments could only hurt himself, and was enough in itself to repay him for any sense of pain and loss which might follow. But he did not argue at all. In Laurence Arbuthnot's place he would scarcely have given himself the latitude he was giving himself now.
"It is safe enough for me," was the sharp-edged thought which had cut through all others once or twice. "It is safe enough for me to be as happy as I may."
But he forgot this as they went down the hill, side by side. For the time being he only felt, and each glance he turned upon Bertha's downcast face gave him cause to realize, what intensity his feelings had reached, and wakened him to that sudden starting of pulse and heart which is almost a pain. When they reached the house Bertha went in search of Janey. She remained with her for about half an hour, and then came out to the hammock with her work-basket. The carnations at her waist were crushed a little, and something of the first freshness of her holiday air was gone. She held a letter in her hand, which she had evidently been reading. She had not returned it to its envelope, and it was still half open.
"It is from Richard," she said, after she had taken her seat in the hammock. "It was brought in from the post-office at Lowville about an hour ago."