“When are you going?” he asked quietly.
“Day after to-morrow.”
“Then you will give me one afternoon for a sail on the river to say good-bye and thank you for what you have done for me and mine?”
She hesitated, laughed, and refused.
“To-morrow at four o’clock I’ll call for you,” he said firmly. “If there’s no wind, we can drift with the tide.”
“I will not have time to go.”
“Promptly at four,” he repeated as he left.
Ben spent hours that night weighing the question of how far he should dare to speak his love. It had been such an easy thing before. Now it seemed a question of life and death. Twice the magic words had been on his lips, and each time something in her manner chilled him into silence.
Was she cold and incapable of love? No; this manner of the North was on the surface. He knew that deep down within her nature lay banked and smouldering fires of passion for the one man whose breath could stir it into flame. He felt this all the keener now that the spell of her companionship and the sweet intimacy of her daily ministry to him had been broken. The memory of little movements of her petite figure, the glance of her warm amber eyes, and the touch of her hand—all had their tongues of revelation to his eager spirit.
He found her ready at four o’clock.