He held her hand in his as he led her to the bench under the pines, where she sat down very docile and quiet. She had succeeded in rousing in him some life and interest. He had held her hand even after he was sitting on the bench beside her; he was looking curiously at her as if frightened, or fascinated, or both, and Tom knew that this was one of the little flank movements with which she had commenced her siege against the citadel of Reginald’s heart.
“By George! I didn’t suppose she was going in so strong,” he thought. “I understood she was to pass for Rena if people chose to make the mistake, and here she is walking into Rex within an hour after she meets him, and I am aiding and abetting her by my silence.”
Tom hated himself with great hatred for his part in the deception, but he had given his promise to Rena and he would keep it until she released him from it, as she would do soon, he was sure. She had tried to be cool and distant at first, and on their way to the grove had managed to say some sharp things, at which he had laughed, knowing by a certain tone in her voice that it was the loss of his good opinion which had hurt her most.
“I am not acting so big a lie as you seem to think,” she said. “We have come as the Misses Burdick, as we are, and I am not obliged to say to him, ‘I am your girl.’ It would be immodest, and I shan’t do it. If he is at all bright he will find out which is which, if he cares to do so.”
“Never mind,” Tom said, soothingly, “I am in the experiment now, and the partaker is as bad as the thief. We’ll see it through together for a while. What do you think of him?”
“Nothing except that he is stiff and shy. I could never talk to him as I do to you and could never like him as that will expects me to. Oh, Tom!——”
Her voice was like a child’s cry for something it wanted, and Tom answered by pressing her arm and bringing her a little closer to him as they kept on their way to the pines, where, after Irene had left the well, she sat beside him very silent, thinking of Nannie’s story and trying to remember when or where she had heard something like it.
“Irene,” he said, at last, “did you ever hear that one of our ancestors away back ever so many years ago, drowned herself in a well?”
“Mercy, no!” Irene replied. “I hope it isn’t so, for if she did she must have been crazy, and her craziness has trickled down to me, who never stand looking from a height, whether in doors or out, that I do not feel a desire to jump, just as now there came over me a strong temptation to throw myself into the well; and I might have done so but for Mr. Travers, who deserves my thanks for breaking the spell.”
Reginald bowed, but said nothing. He was looking at Rena, who was now talking to Tom about the mirror and wishing she could see it, and I was asked if I knew where it was. I did know, and Tom soon had it in his hands, examining it carefully, while Irene reached out for it, saying, “And this is the famous mirror in which Nannie saw Sandy’s face. Please let me take it and look in it over the well, to see how it seems.”