Presently, however, when she seemed to be settled as comfortably as circumstances would permit, he asked: “Would you rather I left you, and tried to get down the mountain to fetch help?”
She caught her breath with a queer little gulp, and he leaned lower to catch her answer.
“I don’t want to bother you, Paddy, and I’m not afraid. I will go and try, if you would rather.”
Still there was no answer. Paddy was wrestling between a wish for him to stay and a feeling that, to be true to herself, she ought to tell him to go.
Lawrence stood upright and looked down at her a few moments in silence. At last he spoke again, and there was a suggestion of pain in his voice:
“I won’t worry you, Paddy, if you’ll let me stay. I—I would much rather not leave you here alone.” He leaned down. “What shall I do, Paddy?”
“Don’t go,” she said in a low voice he could only just distinguish, but his face brightened all over instantly, as he turned away to busy himself again with the fire, afterward taking up his stand once more on the far side from her.
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Rescue.
Meanwhile the little ladies at the Parsonage looked anxiously out into the fog, and wondered that Paddy should have gone to Mourne Lodge on such a night.