“Faithless? Faithless to you, Henrietta?”
“No, that would be a great pain; but it’s not that.”
“Faithless to my country then?”
“Ah, that I hope will never be. When I wrote to you from Liverpool I said I had something particular to tell you. You’ve never asked me what it is. Is it because you’ve suspected?”
“Suspected what? As a rule I don’t think I suspect,” said Isabel.
“I remember now that phrase in your letter, but I confess I had forgotten it. What have you to tell me?”
Henrietta looked disappointed, and her steady gaze betrayed it. “You don’t ask that right—as if you thought it important. You’re changed—you’re thinking of other things.”
“Tell me what you mean, and I’ll think of that.”
“Will you really think of it? That’s what I wish to be sure of.”
“I’ve not much control of my thoughts, but I’ll do my best,” said Isabel. Henrietta gazed at her, in silence, for a period which tried Isabel’s patience, so that our heroine added at last: “Do you mean that you’re going to be married?”