He did not tell her how glad he was to get her back; but she saw it in his face, and felt it in his manner, as he drove her slowly home.
It did seem like coming home, when Mrs. Churchill met her with kisses and loving words, and told how lonely she had been, and how rejoiced she was to see her again.
As they sat alone that evening, after Roy had gone to inquire after Georgie’s head, she recurred again to the forlorn week she had passed, and said, a little hesitatingly:
“I seem to be nothing without you, and what I want to say is this: I notice, sometimes, when Georgie is with me, that you go out, as if you thought I would rather be alone with her. I like her, of course, very much; but when she comes, please let it make no difference; I want you with me just the same. I am accustomed to you. I feel, somehow, rested, when you are with me.”
Edna did not reply, but she felt a great throb of something like homesickness rising in her heart as she thought of going away forever from the gentle lady, who, she was sure, did love, and would miss her so much.
Roy returned from Oakwood earlier than usual, reporting Georgie better, and telling of a burglary which had been committed the previous night, at a house up the mountain-road. Nothing of value was taken, he said; but it showed that thieves were around, and he charged Russell to be very careful in securing the house.
“I would not like to suffer again, as we did in New York,” he said; and then he told Edna how, years ago, his house in New York had been entered, and a quantity of plate and jewelry carried off, notwithstanding that Russell grappled with the thief in the lower hall, and gave him a black eye, by which he was afterward identified and brought to justice. “He must have been a very ingenious villain,” he said, “as, after he was tried, and found guilty, and sentenced to the penitentiary, he managed to break out of prison, and is still at large, and for aught I know, is the very scamp who robbed the house last night.”
Edna was not cowardly, and forgot all about Roy’s burglar until the next day, when Georgie came over to Leighton, and the story was told again by Mrs. Churchill, who had been a little timid the previous night, and thought, once or twice, that she heard something around the house.
Georgie was interested, and excited, and frightened.
“We had a burglar in our house once,” she said; “and since then I cannot even hear the word without its setting every nerve to quivering.”