Brenda took the paper and glanced at it rapidly.
'It is a long one,' she said with a short, hard laugh. 'Is she quite resigned to burying herself alive for a short time?'
'Ye—es.... I put things rather strongly. She has consented to communicate with her husband through Mrs. Wylie, with the view of coming to some sort of agreement.'
The girl drew a sharp breath of relief.
'There ... were ... a good many tears,' added Trist rather unevenly. 'I would suggest a good supply of books,' he said a moment later in a practical way. 'It is a dreadfully dull little place (which makes it safer), and too much thinking is hardly desirable at the present time.'
'It is questionable whether much thinking is profitable at any time.'
Trist looked at her in a curious, doubtful way, and then he rose from his seat.
'I will take you home now,' he said, 'if you are ready. It is nearly one o'clock.'
She rose a little wearily, and, lifting her gloved hand, skirmished deftly over her hair in order to make sure that it had not become deranged. He noted the curve of her white arm, and the quick play of her fingers, while he stood erect and motionless, waiting. No passing light of emotion was visible in his eyes, which possessed a strange, unreflective power of observation. That round white arm was looked upon as a beautiful thing, and nothing more. And she was a trifle weary. Her face betrayed no sign of mental or natural anxiety.
Then she took his arm, and they passed down the splendid stairs together. Co-heirs to a truly human inheritance of sorrow, they bore their burden without complaint or murmur, with a self-reliance behoving children of an acute civilization. For civilization will in time kill all human sympathy.