“Made you ill?” he said. “How could I let you go about all alone these dark evenings? I was forbidden to talk to you as I wished, but there was no reason why I should not watch over you. How’s Mark?”
“Getting better,” said Janet, drawing a breath of relief at her companion’s sudden change in the conversation; for she felt that had he continued in that same sad reproachful strain she must have hung upon his arm, and sobbed and thanked him for his chivalrous conduct. There was something, too, so sweet in the feeling that he must love her very dearly in spite of all the rebuffs he had received; and somehow as they walked on, a gleam of sunny yellow came through the misty greys and dingy drabs with which from her mental colour-box she had been tingeing her future life. There was even a dash of ultramarine, too—a brighter blue than her eyes—and her heart began to beat quite another tune.
“May I come and walk home with you every night?” said Hendon at last, as, after repeated assurances that she was not hurt, they stopped at last at the street door.
“No,” she said decidedly; and her little lips were tightly compressed, so that they should not give vent to a sob.
“How cruel you are, Janet!”
“For trying to do what is right,” she said firmly. “What would your sister say if, after all that has passed, I were to be so weak?”
“May I follow you at a distance, as I have done all this time?” he pleaded.
“No. You have only frightened me almost to death,” she replied. “Will you come up and see poor Mark?”
“Not to-night,” he said bitterly; “I couldn’t bear it now. Janet, if I go to the bad, it won’t be all my fault. I know I’m a weak fellow, but with something to act as ballast, I should be all right. What have I done that you should be so cold?”
For answer, Janet held out her hand.