"No. Nothing more."
Her heart pounded in her throat in her eagerness to finish her toilet. Her fingers were so light that she could scarcely hold her comb. She hurried into a fresh gown and then down-stairs where she found Ben anxiously pacing the library. He appeared greatly agitated—anchorless.
"Ben," she began, "I had no right to allow Peter Donaldson to go away as I did."
"Little sister," he demanded, "was he unkind to you?"
"No. No," she broke in eagerly, "he was most generous with me. But for the moment I could n't see it. It was my fault that he went."
"But what was the cause of it?" he insisted, puzzled and dazed by the whole episode.
"It was nothing that counts now. I want you to promise me, Ben, that you will never refer to it, that you will never permit him to tell you of it."
His face cleared.
"Just a little tiff? But he took it hard. I never saw a man so worked up over anything."
"It belongs to the past," she hurried on, eager to allow it to pass as he interpreted it. "It would be cruel to him to bring it up again. Will you promise me, Ben?"