“Laddie.”
He turned.
“If ye love the lassie, ye’ve no call to be afeard. There’s always a way. There’s no way where no love is.”
“I love her,” said Bennett unconsciously dramatic and absurd. “I love her as my life.”
“God bless ye.”
Fortified by her benison and also by having once told his immense secret Bennett passed swiftly to the drawing-room. He found his mother sitting in her chair in the middle of the room with a cat in her lap. He stooped and kissed her.
“I’ve got some news for you!”
“Sit down. You don’t come and talk to me as often as you might.”
There was an unusual geniality in her voice that made it easy for him to go on.