'Ask Father Benecke to let you stay a few days. Things look bad. What did you say? If you attacked me, it has done you harm.'
* * * * *
Meanwhile Lucy, who felt herself exiled from the woods, the roads, the village, by one threatening presence, shut herself up for a while in her own room, in youth's most tragic mood, calling on the pangs of thought to strengthen still more her resolve and clear her mind.
She forced her fingers to an intermittent task of needlework, but there were long pauses when her hands lay idle on her lap, when her head drooped against the back of her chair, and all her life centred in her fast beating heart, driven and strained by the torment of recollection.
That moment when she had stepped out upon the road from the shelter of the wood—the thrill of it even in memory made her pale and cold. His look—his cry—the sudden radiance of the face, which, as she had first caught sight of it, bent in a brooding frown over the dusty road, had seemed to her the very image of discontent.
'Miss Foster!—Lucy!'
The word had escaped him, in his first rush of joy, his spring towards her.
And she had felt herself tottering, in a sudden blindness.
What could she remember? The breathless contradiction of his questions—the eager grasp of her hand—the words and phrases that were the words and phrases of love—dictated, justified only by love—then her first mention of Eleanor—the short stammering sentences, which as she spoke them sounded to her own ear so inconclusive, unintelligible, insulting—and his growing astonishment, the darkening features, the tightening lips, and finally his step backward, the haughty bracing of the whole man.
'Why does my cousin refuse to see me? What possible reason can you or she assign?'
And then her despairing search for the right word, that would not come! He must please, please, go away—because Mrs. Burgoyne was ill—because the doctors were anxious—because there must be no excitement. She was acting as nurse, but it was only to be for a short time longer. In a week or two, no doubt Mrs. Burgoyne would go to England, and she would return to America with the Porters. But for the present, quiet was still absolutely necessary.