He was holding the girl’s hand while he spoke and looking up keenly at her pretty, tired face. There had been enough in her letters for them to have divined something of her trouble.
“To some it comes early, to others late, Alexina,” he said quite gently. He had noted the signs—the violet shadows beneath the baffled young eyes, the hint of the tragedy in their depths.
Alexina sat down suddenly and, leaning her face on the arm of the wheeled chair, began to cry, not that she meant to do it at all.
Time was when Harriet would have been at a loss, even now she was embarrassed, though she hovered over the girl, anxious and solicitous, and even touched the pretty, shining hair with her hand.
“Let her alone: let her cry it out,” said the Major.
Alexina, groping for his hand, held to it like a very child and cried on.
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