"Of course I do! There can be no doubt! Come, let us go to the house and tell Aunt Bee, and arrange about the guests and so on. Each moment that we stand talking here may increase your difficulties when you get out there."
He tried once more. "Rona! Will you really send me away like this?"
She stopped short, looking blank. "I thought you had decided that it is your duty."
His voice was broken by emotion. "But I thought—I thought—that you would have been sorry to let me go."
"Forgive me," said Rona, "but I don't seem able to think about that. I feel so guilty, my own heart has been such a traitor, I can't bear to think of him out there, alone, unwanted ... when I think that I have wished so earnestly to be free from him I could—Oh, I tell you I could kill myself!"
She turned away, hiding her face in her hands. And Denzil, after a moment's hesitation, chose the wiser part, and turning, went away and left her to wrestle with her remorse.
CHAPTER XXII
FOREBODINGS
She was 'ware of a shadow that crossed where she lay,
She was 'ware of a presence that withered the day.
The Lay of the Brown Rosary.
Miss Rawson had frequently before been left, while Denzil was away, in sole charge at Normansgrave. She was a woman of courage, and it had never occurred to her before to be nervous in the absence of the master of the house. But now she was nervous, and for a reason which she could not define.