“Mr Capel, do not speak to me again like this. I should feel that I was standing in your light if I listened now.”
“But at some future time?”
She looked at him softly, and his breath went and came fast, as her speaking eyes rested on his, and he saw the damask-red deepen in her cheeks.
“Wait till that future time comes,” she whispered.
“And you will help me?” he cried.
“Yes,” she said, at last, “I will help you—all I can.”
He would have caught her in his arms, but she raised her hand.
“I thought we were to be friends.”
“Friends,” he whispered. “I love you.”
“It must be then as a friend,” she said, in her low voice; but there was that in her look which made Capel’s heart throb, while, when she extended her hand, he kissed it, without being aware that Lydia had entered the room, and drawn back, with a weary look of misery in her face that she vainly sought to hide.