Once more they stood breast to breast, with arms entwining.
Why was she so late? What had detained her?
The questions were put with no thought of reproach, only fear as to the answer.
As Pierre had suspected, Jerry Rook had been sitting up late; and, as she suspected, with some idea of watching her. The lighted room was his, and it was he who had extinguished the candle; she had waited after, till he should be well asleep. She had a terrible time of it, both that day and yesterday. Her father had been very angry with her about several things; he had found out that Pierre had been there; he had cross-questioned her, and made her confess it. It was no use denying it, as her father had found his track, and saw the snake that had been shot; and, besides, one of the negroes had heard a man’s voice along with hers among the trees of the orchard. It made it all the worse that she had tried to conceal it, and been found out. Of course she did not say who it was, only a stranger she had never seen before.
“O, Pierre! I told that great lie about you. God forgive me!”
Her father had gone furious; there was something else, too, that made him so—about Alf Brandon, who had come over to see them just after Pierre had gone.
“What was it about Alf Brandon?” asked Pierre, rather calmly, considering that the individual spoken of was a most dangerous rival.
The young girl noticed this, and answered with some pique.
“Oh! nothing much,” she said, relaxing the pressure of her arms. “At least, nothing, I suppose, you would care about.”
“Nay, dear Lena!” he hastily rejoined, noticing the hurt he had unconsciously occasioned, and drawing her back to his breast, “pardon me for the apparent coldness of the question; I only asked it because I wished to tell you that I know all.”