"I was ill at ease, Lawrence," she said, colouring deeper still. "I feared—nay, I do not know what I feared. But I could not stay in the house. Its air stifled me. I could not breathe. I thought—I fancied—nay, something has seemed so amiss with everything—with father and you, Lawrence, with you for these long, long weeks past. I have fancied—"
"Psha! Fancies indeed!" he cried with an impatient twitch of his lips, and turning from her, he stood and gazed with lack-lustre eyes into the water.
"And you're not a bit like the old Lawrence. And all day yesterday you—never mind. Lawrence, what do those dreadful men want here?"
The bayonet.
He turned his face and gazed broodingly into hers, following the direction of her eyes as they fell again on the contents of the basket. "Bringing their horrid—what is the thing called?"
"A bayonet," he answered curtly.
"Their horrid bayonets here; and dropping them all over the place?"
"Well," he said with a faint smile, "they didn't do that purposely, be sure. 'Twas an accident. A stupid, infernal—"
"Oh, Lawrence! Fie, now! For shame, sir!" and Ruth's little hand shut up his lips.
"An awkward little mistake, then," he went on, "of that clod-hopping—never mind names, Ruth."