For though Alys had almost pointedly refrained from any recurrence to the question of their meeting again at Romary, and Mary had been only too ready to second her in all avoidance of the subject, this absence of discussion had in no wise softened the girl’s resolution.
“Never,” she repeated to herself, “never under any circumstances can I imagine myself entering that house again.”
And the day wore on without any allusion being made to the when or the where of their ever meeting again.
Late in the afternoon Mary had gone at Alys’s request to pick some of the pretty spring flowers to be found in profusion in the Balner woods hard by, when, as she was returning homewards, laden with primroses and violets, looking up she saw Mr Cheviott coming quickly along the path to meet her.
“Alys?” she exclaimed, quickly, with just the slightest shade of anxiety in her voice. “Does she want me?”
“Oh, no,” replied Mr Cheviott, with a smile. “Alys is all right. What an anxious nurse you are, Miss Western!”
“Yes,” said Mary, “it is silly. I must get accustomed to the idea of her doing without me. But I could not help having a feeling to-day of a different kind of anxiety—a feeling of almost superstitious fear lest anything should go wrong with her to-day—the last day. It would be so hard to leave her less well than she is, and—of course,” she went on, looking up with a slight flush on her face, “I own to being a little proud of her! It is a great satisfaction to hear Mr Brandreth say that, considering all, she could not have got on better than she has done.”
“Of course it is,” said Mr Cheviott, warmly. “And I am more glad than I can say that you feel it so. It is a little bit of a reward for you.”
Mary did not reply, and they walked on slowly for a few moments in silence.
“How pretty your flowers are,” said Mr Cheviott, at last.