“Miss Ruby Damory,” came the hurried answer.
The postman shook his head.
“I’m expecting a letter,” went on Ruby confusedly. “Perhaps you may have left one at my lodgings in Little Branston? I live at Mrs. Maidment’s at the corner of Green Lane.”
The postman looked at her with an expression which would seem to indicate that Ruby’s place of abode was a matter of supreme indifference to him.
“If any letter comes as is directed there, of course it will be left there,” he said, with a coldly business-like air.
“You didn’t leave one for me, to-day, I suppose?” faltered Ruby.
“Not as I know on,” returned Chris stolidly.
Tears rushed to the girl’s eyes; she felt wounded, insulted by this sudden change from warm admiration—admiration which possibly might have ripened to something else—to complete indifference. She hastily turned away her head to conceal them, but not before she had caught sight of a kind of gleam in the postman’s brown eyes.
“Are ye so terrible disappointed?” he inquired roughly, not to say harshly.
“I—oh, yes, of course I am.”