“I shall be quite well to-morrow,” she cried. “Why, Hartley, how serious you look!”
“Do I?” he said, smiling, for he had been communing with himself as to whether he should ask Leo plainly if she had kept her word.
“Do you? Yes!” she cried angrily; and, without apparent cause, she flashed out into quite a fit of passion. “I declare it is miserable now to be at home. It is like living between two spies.”
“My dear Leo!” began Salis.
“I don’t care: it is. Mary here watches me as a cat does a mouse. You always follow me about whenever I stir from home; and then you two compare notes, and plot and plan together how to make my life a burden.”
“Leo, dear,” said Mary gently, “you are irritable and unwell, or you would not speak like this.”
“I would. I am driven to it by my miserable life at home. I am treated like a prisoner.”
“Leo, my child,” began Salis.
“Yes, that’s it—child! You treat me as if I were a child, and I will not bear it. Anything more cruel it is impossible to conceive.”
“Nonsense, dear,” said Salis, smiling gravely, as he took his sister’s hand.