“Uncle John, what time does the train go? No, I will not listen,” said the girl. The fresh air revived her, and she hurried along a little way: but soon her limbs failed her, and she dropped down trembling upon the stone seat in front of one of the cottages. There she sat for a few minutes, taking off her hat, putting back her hair from her forehead instinctively, as if that would relieve the pressure on her heart.
She was still for a moment, and then burst forth again: “I must go. Oh, you are not to say a word. Do you know what it is to love some one, Uncle John? Yes, you know. It is only a few who can tell what that is. Well,” she said, the sob in her throat interrupting her, making her voice sound like the voice of a child; “that is how he thinks of me; you will think it strange. He is not like a serious man, you will say, to feel so; but he does. Not me! oh, not me!” said Effie, contending with the sob; “I am not like that. But he does. I am not so stupid, nor so insensible, but I know it when I see it, Uncle John.”
“Yes, Effie, I never doubted it; he loves you dearly, poor fellow. My dear little girl, there is time enough to set all right——”
“To set it right! If he hears just at the moment of his trouble that I—that I—— What is the word when a woman is a traitor? Is there such a thing as that a girl should be a traitor to one that puts his trust in her? I never pretended to be like that, Uncle John. He knew that it was different with me. But true—Oh, I can be true. More, more! I can’t be false. Do you hear me? You brought me up, how could I? I can’t be false; it will kill me. I would rather die——”
“Effie! Effie! No one would have you to be false. Compose yourself, my dear. Come home with me and I will speak to them, and everything will come right. There cannot be any harm done yet. Effie, my poor little girl, come home.”
Effie did not move, except to put back as before her hair from her forehead.
“I know,” she said, “that there is no hurry, that the train does not go till night. I will tell you everything as if you were my mother, Uncle John. You are the nearest to her. I was silly—I never thought:—but I was proud too. Girls are made like that: and just to be praised and made much of pleases us; and to have somebody that thinks there is no one in the world like you—for that,” she said, with a little pause, and a voice full of awe, “is what he thinks of me. It is very strange, but it is true. And if I were to let him think for a moment—oh, for one moment!—that the girl he thought so much of would cast him off, because he was poor!——”
Effie sprang up from her seat in the excitement of this thought. She turned upon her uncle, with her face shining, her head held high.
“Do you think I could let him think that for an hour? for a day? Oh, no! no! Yes, I will go home to get my cloak and a bonnet, for you cannot go to London just in a little hat like mine; but don’t say to me, Uncle John, that I must not do it, for I WILL.”
She took his arm again in the force of this resolution. Then she added, in the tone of one who is conceding a great favour: “But you may come with me if you like.”