“You’ll be about done that job to-morrow,” Jethro said. “Just tie the fagots together and put them on the stack.”
The two walked toward the house.
“I think,” she said timidly, “that I would like to go to London to-morrow. Some shopping—that’s all. And I’d like a sight of London streets—a bit of color and movement. One wants that twice in a winter.”
He looked at her suspiciously. The clear fire blazed in her face. Standing there with the icy ground under their feet and the scurrying, sunless sky above their heads, they read each other’s souls.
“No,” she said passionately; “you can trust me. I think I can trust myself. London is very big. I am not likely to meet him.”
“Go, if you like. But there will be a hard frost to-night and very likely snow to-morrow,” he returned, looking up to the sky for a weather sign.
The clear, hard light showed his rugged face, stern and simple.
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
HE stopped at the door and said he must drive over to the Flagon House before dusk. Pamela went alone into the drawing-room and sat by the fire. The luxury and completeness of the room touched her with a sense of Jethro’s boundless generosity—all the more creditable because he was a frugal man. It was quite a modern room now—it had the thin, elegant touch which she preferred.