'Why don't you reply? Why don't you speak?'
'Because, Mr. Athel, it is surely needless to say that I have no such thought.'
'No, it is not needless; and even now you speak in a way which troubles me. Do not look away from me. What has my aunt told you about me?'
She turned her face to him. Her self-command was so complete that not a throb of her leaping heart betrayed itself in vein or muscle. She even met his eyes with a placid gaze which he felt as a new aspect of her countenance.
'Mrs. Rossall has never spoken to me of your health,' she said.
'But my father's jokes; he has a way of humorous exaggeration. You of course understand that; you don't take seriously all he says?'
'I think I can distinguish between jest and earnest.'
'For all that, you speak of the recovery of my health as if I were still far from the wholly rational stand-point. So far from my being mentally unsound, this rest has been a growing-time with me. Before, I did nothing but heap my memory with knowledge of hooks; now I have had leisure to gather knowledge of a deeper kind. I was a one-sided academical monster; it needed this new sense to make me human. The old college life is no longer my ideal; I doubt if it will be possible. At any rate, I shall hurry over the rest of my course as speedily as may be, that I may begin really to live. You must credit what I am saying; I want you to give me distinct assurance that you do so. If I have the least doubt, it will trouble my mind in earnest.'
Miss Hood rose to her feet in that graceful effortless way of which girls have the secret.
'You attribute a meaning to my words that I never thought of,' she said, again in the distant respectful manner.