"Did I hear what? I just heard that woman Janet havering, as she always does."
"She said he sailed yesterday." Lilias made a pause and looked into her sister's face. "Is it true?"
"Where would he sail to, I would like to know?" Margaret said; then, with a sudden pressure of the girl's arm, "And supposing it were true? It was what I would have done in his place, if it had been me."
Lilias' young figure swayed upon her arm, the light went out of her eyes. She walked on mechanically for a few minutes, sustained by Margaret, not seeing where she went. In those minutes everything was dark to her, the out-door world, the inner horizon. Blackness came up without and within, and covered earth and heaven. First disappointment, and that terrible prolongation of suspense, the hope deferred that maketh the heart sick; then an overwhelming sense of uncertainty, of insecurity, of the earth failing beneath her feet. All had seemed so easy before. To tear a piece of paper, to write a letter, what more simple? But perhaps now what had seemed so easy might be impossible—impossible! He might never have loved her, he might never come back at all; it might be all a delusion. Lilias did not swoon or lose consciousness; on the contrary, she remembered everything, saw everything in the darkness like a horrid dream; her heart throbbed, her blood all rushed to the brain to reinforce it, to give strength for the emergency; all round her there was nothing but blackness. The sun was shining full upon her, but where she was it was night.
All that Margaret saw outside was that Lilias said nothing, that she clung to her arm, that she stumbled a little in walking, as if she did not see any little obstacles in the way, and hurried on as if she were pursued, bending her head, her feet twisting with a sort of headlong impulse. She did not know what to think; she said, with a quaver of profound anxiety in her voice,
"My darling, where are you going so fast, Lilias, my bonnie dear?"
These words penetrated the gloom, and brought Lilias in some degree to herself. The darkness quivered and opened up. She slackened her steps, leaning still more closely on her sister's arm, and gradually the common day came back in widening circles, and she began to see the light and the trees. The crisis had been terrible, but her heart already rallied.
"What do you say—about going fast? Do you mean the ship?" she said.
"My bonnie dear!" was all Margaret's reply. And she held the girl up with her strong arm, half carrying her, and hurrying her on the road towards home. Margaret thought she was going to faint and fall, not seeing that she was in fact recovering from the blow.
"Do not hold me so tight, Margaret; you are hurting me. Yes, I was walking fast—I forgot: for I want to be home, home. Oh! never mind me, Margaret; I am just a little giddy, but I am better." Lilias freed her arm almost with impatience. "Why should you support me? Has anything happened to me?" she said.