"Oh, I am particularly well, thanks, only a little tired to-day."
"How do you think I look?" he asked quietly.
She dared not refuse the challenge. Her eyes, when she lifted them, held a piteous appeal.
But it was relief of which she was sensible as she met his gaze. It was kind and gentle. He looked ill; so ill that she wondered that Lance had not cried out upon him. He was like a man who has passed through some shattering experience, she thought. There were dark marks below his eyes, he had lost flesh, and he was pale, though so tanned that this was not obvious. But in his face was no shadow of the contempt she had feared to see, and had winced from the thought of.
In her relief she smiled up at him wistfully, as a child smiles at his mother, to make sure she is no longer displeased. When he smiled in answer, it was like sunshine breaking out over a cloudy landscape. It brought all her heart to her lips, it made her inclined to say:
"Oh, I must tell you my doubts and fears, and how I have tortured myself since last I saw you!"
The words were trembling on her tongue. In blind terror of self-betrayal, she said the first safe thing that came into her head; an inquiry after the progress at Lone Ash.
"They are roofing it," he said. "The roof goes on this week."
She coloured with pleasure.
"Oh, do tell me what the effect is! Do tell me how it looks from the road below the gate!"