“It was a letter to my mother,” pursued Geneviève calmly, and an instant revulsion of feeling for the injustice he had done her took place in Trevor’s mind, “and I wished not that they should see it, because I wrote there are but two days, and I feared—” she stopped and hesitated, “I wish not that Cicely should think me silly,” she added.
“Think you silly for writing home often! Cicely, who is so over head and ears devoted to her own home! How could she?” said Mr. Fawcett. There was a slight undertone of bitterness in his words which Geneviève did not understand. She feared that he was firing up in her cousin’s defence.
“Perhaps she would not think so,” she replied meekly. “But—but—will you not tell that I walked alone to Greybridge? I am so strange here, I fear to do wrong,” she added pleadingly, the tears rushing to her eyes again.
“Of course I will say nothing about it if you ask me not,” said Mr. Fawcett. “But I assure you, my dear child, you mistake Cicely. I know her so well, you see—I understand her—and she is the best and kindest girl in the world.”
But in his heart he felt a certain irritation against “the best and kindest girl in the world.” “She has chilled this poor little soul by that cold manner of hers,” he said to himself.
“I am foolish,” said Geneviève humbly. “I always am afraid.”
“But you are not afraid of me?” said Trevor rashly. The dewy, dark eyes which had been raised to his, drooped, and again the soft colour flooded over her face.
“No,” she whispered, “because you are so kind, so very kind.”
“Then the next time you are in any trouble about letters or anything, you will tell me first, won’t you?” he said encouragingly, “and not set off to Greybridge alone. And if you want to know some of the pretty walks nearer home, I shall be delighted to show you them. Any day, for instance, that Cicely is busy with her father or mother—I know she is often so. There are some awfully pretty walks between the Abbey and Lingthurst Woods.”
“Thank you,” said Geneviève, her face lighting up with pleasure, “oh! thank you, and thank you too so much that you will not say how far I went to-day,” she added, more timidly.