“I can refuse you nothing,” said Witham with a laugh, though his voice betrayed him. “Still, I want a quid pro quo. Wait until Ferris’s farm is in the sale list, and then take it with the growing crop.”
“I could not. There are reasons,” said the girl.
Witham gazed at her steadily, and a little colour crept to his forehead, but he answered unconcernedly, “They can be over-ridden. It may be the last favour I shall ever ask you.”
“No,” said Maud Barrington. “Anything else you wish, but not that. You must believe, without wondering why, that it is out of the question!”
Witham yielded with a curious little smile. “Well,” he said, “we will let it drop. I ask no questions. You have accepted so much already without understanding it.”
[CHAPTER XVII—WITH THE STREAM]
It was Witham’s last afternoon at the Grange, and almost unpleasantly hot, while the man whose vigour had not as yet returned to him was content to lounge in the big window-seat listlessly watching his companion. He had borne the strain of effort long, and the time of his convalescence amidst the tranquility of Silverdale Grange had, with the gracious kindliness of Miss Barrington and her niece, been a revelation to him. There were moments when it brought him bitterness and self-reproach, but these were usually brief, and he made the most of what he knew might never be his again, telling himself that it would at least be something to look back upon.
Maud Barrington sat close by, glancing through the letters a mounted man had brought in, and the fact that his presence put no restraint on her curiously pleased the man. At last, however, she opened a paper and passed it across to him.
“You have been very patient, but no doubt you will find something that will atone for my silence there,” she said.
Witham turned over the journal, and then smiled at her. “Is there anything of moment in your letters?”