But it was with matter-of-fact kindliness only that he went on to speak to her.
“You are looking so dreadfully tired,” he said. “Where are the others? I thought you all started together. Have you lost your way?”
“Yes,” said Philippa, with a kind of gasp. “Evelyn, my sister, got tired, and they turned back. I—I thought I could find the road to Palden by myself.”
The very incoherence of her explanation enlightened him.
“Get off, Solomon,” he exclaimed, in a gruffer tone than the dachshund, still leaping and jumping about Philippa, was accustomed to. “He has not forgotten you, you see,” Michael went on, eager to say something or anything to hide his own suspicion of the situation. Then the colour rose quickly to his face as he realised the awkwardness of the allusion.
“I should say—” he began again, but Philippa, oblivious of any cause for embarrassment in his words, answered, quietly:
“No, the dear dog, and I have never forgotten him. But will you put me on my road home? I am very tired,” she added, faintly, though trying to smile.
It seemed to Michael that her white face grew still whiter as she spoke. He half started forward fearing she was going to fall, but she pulled herself together again with a strong effort, and he, instinctively divining that she was just the sort of girl to detest anything approaching to a “scene,” drew back quickly and went on speaking as if he had not noticed the passing weakness which had come over her.
“You have not wandered so very far after all,” he said. “Every turn in these woods has been familiar to me since I was a child, so I can soon set you right. But,”—and here he was forced to allude to her exhausted condition—“do you think you can possibly walk back all the way to Palden?”
He did not in the least allude to her returning to Merle, there to join her friends, as would have seemed natural under the circumstances. At the moment Philippa scarcely realised the tact which prompted this omission, or rather in some unconscious way she took it for granted, as indeed, on looking back afterwards, she saw that she had accepted with tacit confidence the strong and kind support of his presence.