Mary shrank at the contact of his lips with her soft, white hand; and a look of despair that she could not control shot from her lustrous eyes.
North did not see it, but Hartley Salis made a mental note thereof as the doctor exclaimed, laughing:
“There, good folks, let me go. Don’t laugh at me and be too hard when I am gone.”
“Hard!” said the curate sadly.
“Well, I know I’m behaving like a lunatic. I’m going away to study hard, and work myself back into a state of sanity—if I can.”
He nodded and left the house; and, as the door closed, Mary closed her eyes as the sank back helplessly in her place.
“Asleep, dear?” said Hartley tenderly, a few minutes later, and he had risen from where he sat, with a dejected look upon his face.
“No, Hartley; only thinking,” she said, smiling sweetly in his face.
“Thinking?”
“Of Leo.”