"Are you going with Mr. Oswald Cray?"
"I am going with my brother."
"With--your--brother! And not with Mr. Oswald Cray?"
"No, surely not. How could I go with Mr. Oswald Cray? It would not be proper," she simply added.
"I--I thought--I meant as his wife," said poor Sara, all confused in her heart sickness. "I beg your pardon."
"As his wife!--Mr. Oswald Cray's! Nay, but that is an unlikely thing to fancy. I am not suitable to Mr. Oswald Cray. Do you know him?
"O yes."
"Then you might have been sure he'd not cast his thoughts to a plain body like me. Why should he? I am not his equal in position. He has been a brother to Frank, and I reverence him beyond any one I know as a good and true friend. That's all."
Why did her heart give a great bound of hope at the words, when she knew--when she knew that he was lost to her? Oswald Cray came bounding up the stairs, but a mist had gathered before Sara's eyes, and she saw nothing clearly.
"Frank is waiting for you, Jane. He will not come upstairs again."