At the words—he had been wrong to speak so kindly—the clear hazel of her eyes was suffused with tears. The eyes were doubly beautiful so.
"'I'll not believe but Desdemona's honest'" he found himself replying to that annoying little voice which kept whispering, "Have they put her on to me?"
Deleah kept her wet eyes strained upon him, lest in lowering them the tears should overflow. "I don't know what you can think of me," she said falteringly. "I don't know how I had courage to come. I only had Bernard's letter this morning; he said—it—must be done to-day. My mother must not know: there is no one else: I had no one to ask. You had been so good to me once—I thought of you."
"I quite understand. Quite. Quite."
"I was a child then," she laboured on, forcing herself to try to express what she felt ought to be said; "and although I had no right to trouble you, to a child things may be forgiven. But now—but now—!"
"But now," he repeated, and smiled his faint smile again. To him she was but a child still, and his tone conveyed that message.
"I am very much ashamed," she said. "And so—so grateful."
She folded the cheque, put it in her cheap, little-used purse, and stood up. So humiliated she felt, she hesitated to put out her hand, lest he should think it presumptuous on her part to expect him to shake hands with her.
"Where is this brother of yours? What is he doing?" he asked.
"He is at Ingleby. Mr. George Boult put him into one of his shops in the country."