Agatha's face softened. "Ah," she said, "she would not grudge the effort in the case of one she loved."
Then she looked up again with a smile. "I wonder," she added, "if you really thought I should flinch."
"When I first heard of it, I thought it quite likely. Then when I read your letter my doubts vanished."
He saw he had not been judicious, for there was, for the first time, a trace of hardness in the girl's expression.
"He showed you that?" she asked.
"One small part of it," said Wyllard. "I want to say that when I saw this house, and how you seemed fitted to it, my misgivings about Gregory's decision troubled me once more. Now"—and he made a little impressive gesture—"they have vanished altogether, and they'll never come back again."
He spoke as he felt. This girl, he fancied, would feel the strain; but it seemed to him that she had strength enough to bear it cheerfully. In spite of her daintiness, she was one who, in time of stress, could be depended on. He often remembered afterwards how they had sat together in the little, luxuriously furnished room, she leaning back, with the soft light on her delicately tinted face, in her big, low chair. In the meanwhile she said nothing, and by and bye he looked up at her.
"It's curious that I had your photograph ever so long, and never thought of showing it Gregory," he said.
Agatha smiled. "I suppose it is," she admitted. "After all, except that it might have been a relief to Major Radcliffe if he had met you sooner, the fact that you didn't show it Gregory doesn't seem of any particular consequence."
Wyllard was not quite sure of this. He had thought about this girl often, and had certainly been conscious of a curious thrill of satisfaction when he had met her at the stepping-stones a few days earlier. That feeling had also suddenly disappeared when he had learned that she was his comrade's promised wife. He had, however, during the last hour or two made up his mind to think no more of her.