“I don’t want blessing; nor is it the others I am thinking of. Ally, are you angry?”
He had taken in his own her cold hands, with the snow-drops in them, and was bending over them. Ally trembled so that she let her flowers fall, but neither of them paid any attention. He did not say he loved her, or anything of that kind, which perhaps the girl expected; but he said, “Ally, are you angry?” once more.
“Oh, no,” she said, in a voice that was no more than a whisper: and then the sound of a step upon the gravel made them start asunder.
It was Sir Edward, who had heard the dog-cart coming along the curve by the river, and who, restless in his anxiety, had come forth to see who it was. Both Rochford and Ally stooped down after that little start of separation to pick up the fallen flowers, and then once more their hands touched, and the same whisper, so meaningless yet so full of meaning, was exchanged—“If you are not angry, give them to me, Ally!”
Angry? no; why should she be angry? She gave him the snow-drops out of her hand, and while he ran up to meet her father was thankful to have the chance of stooping to gather up the rest. It was not so much, after all, that he had said; nothing but her name—Ally—and “Are you angry?” At what should she be angry?—because he had called her by her name? It had never sounded so sweetly, so soft, in her ears before.
“Yes, I am on my way to the station. I came to see if you had any instructions for me; if there was any—news, before I go.”
“I don’t see how there could be any news,” said Sir Edward, who had relapsed into something of his old irritation. “I didn’t expect any news. If he did not write at first, do you think it likely he would write now?”
“He might do so any day; every day makes it more likely that he should do so,” said Rochford, “in my opinion.”
“Ah, you think more favorably than I do,” said the father, shaking his head, but he was mollified by the words. He went on shaking his head. “As long as he can get on there I don’t expect him to write. I don’t expect him to come back. I don’t think you’ll find him ever so easily as you suppose. But still, you can try; I have no objection that you should try.”
“Then there is nothing more to say beyond what we settled last night?”