Her hand had not left his shoulder, and, in offering a parting kiss, she leaned her head there also.
“I wish you would not go!” she said impulsively and sincerely.
“Why?”
“I cannot say—except that I dread to be left alone all day. You may laugh at me, but I feel as if something terrible were hanging over me—or you. The spiritual oppression is like the physical presentiment sensitive temperaments suffer when a thunder-storm is brooding, but not ready to break. Yet I can refer my fears to no known cause.”
“That is folly.” Mr. Aylett bit off the end of a cigar, and felt in his vest pocket for a match-safe. “You should be able always to assign a reason for the fear as well as the hope that is in you. You have no idea, you say, from what recent event your prognostication takes its hue?”
She laughed, and straightened her fine neck.
“From the same imprudence that has consigned poor Herbert to the house for the day, I suspect—a late and heavy dinner. I had the nightmare twice before morning. You will be home to supper?”
“Yes.”
Hesitating upon the monosyllable, he took hold of her elbows, so as to bring her directly before him, and searched her countenance until it was dyed with blushes.
“Why do you color so furiously?” he asked in raillery that had a sad or sardonic accent. “I was about to ask if you would be inconsolable if I never came back. Perhaps your presentiment points to some such fatality. These little accidents have happened in better-regulated families than ours.”