“No, dear old boy, don’t ask me,” she had said painfully. “It—it doesn’t bear talking about. He just doesn’t think me good enough. That’s all.”
But the following morning, when he asked her if she would like to leave Silverquay, a look of intense relief overspread her face.
“Would it be possible?” she asked on a low, breathless; note of eagerness. Then her face fell. “Oh, but we can’t think of it! It’s much too good a post for you to throw up.”
Robin made no answer. But in his own mind he resolved that, if it were possible, he would find some other post—one which, while it would not take him entirely out of reach of the Priory, would yet spare Ann the necessity of ever again meeting Eliot Coventry, or of feeling that they were dependent for their livelihood on the man who, he was instinctively aware, had hurt her in some deep, inmost sanctuary of her womanhood—hurt her so unbearably that she could not bring herself to speak of it.
He rode across to Heronsmere as soon as breakfast was over, and it did not require a second glance at Eliot’s haggard face to tell him that Ann was not alone in her intensity of suffering. He was appalled at the change which two days had worked in the man before him, and for an instant sheer pity almost quenched the burning intention of his errand.
“You wanted to see me, Lovell?”
As Eliot turned the grey mask of his face towards him, Robin mentally visioned Ann’s own face as he had last seen it, and his heart hardened.
“Yes,” he said, speaking rather jerkily. “I want to resign my post as your agent.”
A momentary change of expression showed itself on Eliot’s face, fleeting as the passage of a shadow across a pool.
“To resign?” he repeated mechanically.