The assurance was given, and the men bowed to each other. Hagar saw a smile play ironically on Telford's face—saw it followed by a steellike fierceness in the eye. He replied to both in like fashion, but one would have said the advantage was with Telford—he had the more remarkable personality.
The two were left alone. They passed through the cloisters without a word. Hagar saw the two figures disappear down the long vista of groined arches. "I wish to heaven I could see how this will all end," he muttered. Then he joined Baron and Mildred Margrave.
Telford and Mrs. Detlor passed out upon a little bridge spanning the stream, still not speaking. As if by mutual consent, they made their way up the bank and the hillside to the top of a pretty terrace, where was a rustic seat among the trees. When they reached it, he motioned to her to sit. She shook her head, however, and remained standing close to a tree.
"What you wish to say—for I suppose you do wish to say something—will be brief, of course?"
He looked at her almost curiously.
"Have you nothing kind to say to me, after all these years?" he asked quietly.
"What is there to say now more than—then?"
"I cannot prompt you if you have no impulse. Have you none?"
"None at all. You know of what blood we are, we southerners. We do not change."
"You changed." He knew he ought not to have said that, for he understood what she meant.