"Do you think, if I proposed it, your mother could bear to have me on a visit to the farm?"
"Mother!—you!" he said in astonishment. A hundred notions blazed up in his mind. What on earth did she want to be in those parts again for?
"My stepmother is very unwell," she said hurriedly. "It—well, it troubles me not to see her. But I can't go to Bannisdale. If your mother doesn't hate me now, as she did last summer—perhaps—she and Polly would take me in for a while?"
He frowned over it—taking the airs of the relative and the counsellor.
"Mother didn't say much—well—about your affair. But Polly says she's never spoken again you since. But I expect—you know what she'd be afraid of?"
He nodded sagaciously.
"I can't imagine," said Laura, instantly. But the stiffening of her slight frame betrayed her.
"Why, of course—Miss Laura—you see she'd be afraid of its coming on again."
There was silence. The broad rim of Laura's velvet hat hid her face.
Hubert began to be uncomfortable.
"I don't say as she'd have cause to," he said slowly; "but——"