“How quiet and unimpulsive he is,” thought Grey. “How wanting in eagerness to go to Helen’s help. Surely now that she needs all his sympathy and love—now that she must be in a terrible state of suffering—he could not be so base as to forsake her! He could not, he would not do that! I should hate him if he did.”
There was a pause then, and they both seemed to be listening to the hum of voices in the next room; and then Grey Stuart said to herself, softly:
“Should I hate him if he did?”
The answer came directly.
“Yes, for the man I could love must be too chivalrous to wrong a woman by neglect in her time of trial.”
“Yes,” said Hilton, rousing himself from a state of abstraction, “we must soon be upon the river; I expected that we should have been there before now.”
“I pray Heaven for your safety and success, Captain Hilton,” said Grey Stuart, gravely.
“And for Chumbley’s too?” he said.
“And for Lieutenant Chumbley’s and Mr Harley’s too,” she said, in a low voice.
As she spoke the door opened, and Mrs Bolter entered, followed by the Resident; and as soon as the former was seated, Grey rose, crossed the room, and went and stood with her hands resting upon her chair, the act seeming to give her strength to bear what was becoming painful.