“I will,” she whispered, “I will indeed.” And then she added a pathetic word. “I didn’t think you would be so kind.”
“I’m not kind,” he exclaimed testily. “I’m only doing my duty. There! That’s right”—for she was trying to smile.
And then they started walking down what seemed to the girl interminable cold, clean, bare passages. But at last they passed through a baize door into what had once been the Governor’s official residence before the pleasant villa which the Brackburys occupied had been built, and where were now situated the prison offices.
The Governor opened the door of a large room and courteously stood aside to allow her to pass in. And then suddenly Jean, through a mist of blinding tears, saw Harry Garlett.
He was standing close to the wall behind a long narrow table to her left. For a moment she thought him unchanged; and then she saw that all the healthy, outdoor-man look had gone, and that there was an awful air of strain in the eyes which seemed the only thing alive in his pale set face.
A fire was burning at the other end of the room, but it was very cold, and the atmosphere was full of the musty feeling of an uninhabited room.
Colonel Brackbury brought over a chair for Jean to sit upon. Then, looking from the girl to his prisoner, he said: “And now I will leave you to your talk, Miss Bower. You see that door over there? I shall be close to it, reading my paper, and I shall not be able to hear anything you say unless you raise your voices.”
He walked quickly down the long room, and Jean sat down on the chair he had provided for her.
For a few moments neither of them said anything. She sat, with downcast eyes, trying to repress the tears which would come in spite of her effort to keep them back, while he, poor wretch, gazed at her, all his soul in his sunken eyes remembering.
At last she whispered: “You don’t mind my having come? There is a real reason, Harry, or I would not have done it.”