“What would you have me do?” she asked.
The man’s big, shy heart found room to speak. “I’d have you marry him as soon as maybe. Rebecca tells me you’re both minded that way.—And, there, I’ve frightened you. An old man had no right to say as much.”
“Yes,” she said. “Tell me——”
“It’s you that’s three parts of his trouble.”
“Then I can go, Michael.”
“He’d only follow, and bring you back. He’s got to that pass, he’d rather Logie went than you.”
They stood together in the stable-yard. Starlings were making a sleepy din among the ivy, and over old Pengables the red of dawn pushed through the mists. The day seemed full of grey foreboding, but Causleen did not ask what was to come. Michael’s blunt simplicity made it sure that he was speaking truth. “He’d rather Logie went than you”—the words were like a throstle’s song in spring.
“Then I will stay,” she said, and smiled on him, and went indoors.
Rebecca had come down, prepared to light the fire and scold her way through household tasks, but even she stood mute at sight of the Master. In all her days she had not seen a living man so dead to sound or motion. There was only the gentle breathing to tell her he was more than the husk of what had been.
She started as Causleen entered, then rasped at the girl to cover her own disquiet.