“I wonder whether he would try to improve if I asked him, and pointed out how wrong it is of him to be so much trouble to his parents,” thought Sage; and then she shivered with a strange kind of dread.
Why had she thought all that? What was Cyril Mallow to her? It was only out of civility that he had spoken to her as he had, but she felt that it was out of place, and that Mr Mallow would not have approved of it at all, and—and it was very dreadful.
As a rule, Sage Portlock was a firm, determined girl, full of decision and strength of character, but the words of the spiteful woman seemed to have quite unnerved her, and with the sense of being very guilty, and of having behaved treacherously to Luke Ross, she had hard work to keep from starting off, and breaking into a run.
“And he is coming on so quickly,” she thought. “He will overtake me before I get to the gate. How dare he follow me about like this, and why is not Luke here to protect me!”
Sage Portlock’s excitement had thoroughly mastered her, and she uttered quite a hysterical little cry, as the steps drew quite near now, and a voice exclaimed—
“Why, Sage, I almost had to run.”
“Luke!”
“Yes; Luke,” he replied, smiling, as he took her hand in his. “Who did you think it was?”
“I—I—didn’t know; I wanted to get home quickly,” she faltered. “I did not know it was you.”
“I know that,” he said, drawing her hand through his arm, “or else you would have stopped, wouldn’t you?”