"But there's nothing for them to reproach me with," she reiterated, her face buried deeper in the counterpane. "It was not pleasant to stand there; but it is over. And they need not reflect upon me for it."
"What is over? To stand where?" he asked.
"At the Guildhall, on the trial."
"It is not that that people will reproach thee with, Anna. It was not a nice thing for thee; but that, in itself, brings no reproach."
Anna lifted her head wonderingly. "What does, then?" she uttered.
He did not answer. He only closed his eyes, a deep groan bursting from the very depths of his heart. It came into Anna's mind that he must be thinking of her previous acquaintance with Herbert Dare; of her stolen meetings in the field by twilight.
"Oh, father, don't thee be angry with me!" she implored, the tears streaming from her eyes. "It was no harm; it was not indeed. Thee mightst have been present always, for all the harm there was, and I wish thee hadst been. Why should thee think anger of it? There was no more harm in my talking with him now and then in the field, than there was in my talking with him in Margaret Ashley's drawing-room."
Something in the simple words, in the tone, in the manner altogether, caused the Quaker's heart to leap within him. Had he been making a molehill into a mountain? Surely, yes! But what else he would have said or done, what questions asked, cannot be known, for they were interrupted by a visit from William Halliburton. Anna stole away.
William was full of hearty congratulation on the visible improvement—the, so far, restoration to health. The Quaker murmured some half-inarticulate words, indicating something to the effect that he might not have been ill, but for taking up a worse view of the case than, as he believed now, it really merited.
William leaned over him; a glad look in his eye; a glad sound in his low voice.