A little shiver passed through her, caused by the recollection of words she had heard, acts of which she had been a witness, in the chapel during the foregoing week—words and acts of emotion, of abandonment—love crying to love. A momentary thirst seized her—an instant's sense of privation, of longing, gone almost as soon as it had come.
Helbeck turned to her.
"So this dance you are going to is on Thursday?" he said pleasantly.
She came to herself in a moment.
"Yes, on Thursday, at eight. I shall go early. I have engaged a fly to take me to the farm—thank you!—and my cousins will see me home. I am obliged to you for the key. It will save my giving any trouble."
"If you did we should not grudge it," he said quietly.
She was silent for a few more steps, then she said:
"I quite understand, Mr. Helbeck, that you do not approve of my going. But I must judge for myself. The Masons are my own people. I am sorry they should have—— Well—I don't understand—but it seems you have reason to think badly of them."
"Not of them," he said with emphasis.
"Of my cousin Hubert, then?"