“Mary! You here? You poor child, what is—what can be the matter?”
Chapter Twenty Seven.
An Act of Common Humanity.
”... And now thy pardon, friend,
For thou hast ever answered courteously,
And wholly bold thou art, and meek withal
As any of Arthur’s best
... I marvel what thou art.”
“Damsel,” he said, “ye be not all to blame,
... Ye said your say;
Mine answer was my deed. Good sooth! I hold
He scarce is knight, yea but half man ...
... He, who lets
His heart be stirred with any foolish heat
At any gentle damsel’s waywardness.”
Gareth and Lynette.
Her eyes gleamed up into his face. But for a moment or two she did not speak. The inclination was so desperately strong upon her to burst into tears that she felt if she attempted to answer him, if she even moved her gaze or allowed a muscle of her face to quiver, it would have been all over with her self-control. He, on his side, stood watching her closely; he did not like the strained, unnatural expression, and thought for a moment that when it relaxed it would be into something worse—he thought she was going to faint, and half stretched out his arms as if to catch her. Mary saw the action, and it restored her self-possession.
“I won’t be a fool,” she murmured to herself, “wasting all this precious time with my nonsense,” though in reality barely three minutes had passed since the sound of the wheels had first reached her.
Then she gave herself a sort of little admonitory shake, and, turning again to Mr Cheviott, spoke in a more natural, but yet evidently excited tone.
“I will explain it all,” she said, and so she did. Her father’s symptoms of increasing weakness and the note to Dr Brandreth, then the sudden seizure and the difficulty of obtaining a messenger, ending with her own failure at the Edge and Mrs Wills’s suggestion.