She was becoming nervous and alarmed. Was her cousin going out of her mind? Was she walking in her sleep? The last suggestion really impressed her for a moment. She passed her arm round Geneviève’s shoulder and turned her face gently towards her.
“Let me see you, Geneviève,” she said softly. The moonlight fell full on the girl’s face; it looked strangely pale, the lips were quivering, the eyes were cast down, great tears stood on the long dark eyelashes. A sudden impulse came over Cicely. She threw her arms round the poor little trembling figure and kissed her tenderly.
“Geneviève, my dear child!” she exclaimed, “you are in trouble, you are unhappy about something. Won’t you trust me? Tell me, whatever it is.”
A vague remembrance of what her mother had observed about Mr. Guildford, a more distinct recollection of Geneviève’s evident agitation on the day of the picnic flashed across Cicely’s mind. Could it really be the case that her cousin had won the heart of the cynical student, and yielded her own in return? But even if it were so, Cicely was at a loss to understand why Geneviève should take to running across the park at midnight instead of going comfortably to sleep. Still the idea suggested some possible explanation of her tears and dejection. Perhaps she was of the order of romantic young ladies who consider outlandish and uncomfortable behaviour a part of the róle.
But Geneviève’s reply, when at last it came, disappointed Cicely greatly.
“Please do not be angry, Cicely,” she said. “I did not mean to startle you. I knew not it was so late. I had only gone a little way.”
“What do you mean, Geneviève?” exclaimed Cicely. “You must have intended to go out without any one knowing. It is nonsense to speak as if you had accidentally stayed out later—as if it were the day-time instead of the middle of the night. I want to know where you have been, and what you went out for at such an extraordinary hour.”
She had drawn back a little from Geneviève, for her want of frankness chilled her. Geneviève began to cry again.
“I have been nowhere,” she said, between her sobs. “At least only a little way over the park.”
“The way by the mill, that we were speaking of to-night?” said Cicely.