“Please tell me, guardian,” she said.
“Only make you unhappy, my dear, just when you are getting back to your old self.”
She looked at him in a troubled way for some moments, and then with a sudden outburst:
“You have seen Uncle James?”
He did not answer for a while, but sat gazing at the fire.
“Yes,” he said, at last; “I have seen your Uncle James.”
“And he knows I am here,” she cried, clasping her hands, and looking at him in horror.
He turned slowly and met her eyes.
“Then you don’t repent the step you have taken, and want to go back to Northwood?” he said.
“How could I when you have protected me as you have, and saved me from so much suffering and insult?”