“But how can I help it?” she cried a little piteously. “Don’t you understand that I must thank you—that it is the one and only return I can make?”
He looked into her face a moment and decided to humour her.
“Very well, only let us consider it finished. If it eases your mind, I will accept your gratitude; but I must be allowed to add it is absolutely uncalled-for, seeing I would risk a dozen lives for you cheerfully any day.”
Her eyes fell before his, and she clenched her hands yet harder. Then he quite suddenly changed the subject.
“They tell me you are going back to London in two days. Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“How you must hate it?” He looked round at the gleaming, beautiful loch and the mountains beyond. “It must be desperately hard to go back.” She could not trust herself to speak, and he continued in a voice that had suddenly grown dangerously sympathetic. “I always think it is harder for you than the others. Your mother and Eileen always have each other, and any one can see how much that means to both. But you, somehow—since the dear old General died—seem to have had no one to take his place.”
Great tears gathered in her eyes, and fell on her clasped hands. Why, or why, did he unman her! He was playing with the twig again, and pretending not to notice. “Isn’t that so?” he asked.
She caught her breath and steadied her voice with an effort.
“I have been very fortunate,” she said. “I might have had to go right away from everybody as a nursery governess, instead of having so many friends, and such a nice post, and plenty of liberty.”