He did not join in her laugh, but looked at her with melting eyes—eyes in which there was some suspicion of tears. It was perhaps a trifle unkind of her to call him complacent in his conjugality. There were a hundred unspeakable things in his look—pity, reverence, devotion, not the old love perhaps, but something higher; something that was never to end.
“On the whole, we are taking it too seriously,” she said, after a pause. “It is over now, and the sun is going down. And you came to talk to me?—perhaps of something in the parish that wants looking to?”
“No—I came in only to look at you, and make sure that you were well. The children you were visiting the other day have the scarlet fever; and besides, I have had a feeling in my mind about you—a presentiment. I should not have been surprised to hear that there had been—letters—or some kind of advances made—— ”
“From whom?”
“Well,” he said, after a slight pause; “they are both brothers—both sons—but they are not the same to me, Miss Mary. From John; he has been so much in my mind these two or three days, I have got to dreaming about him. Yes, yes, I know that is not worth thinking of; but we were always in such sympathy, he and I. Don’t you believe in some communication between minds that were closely allied? I do. It is a superstition if you like. Nothing could happen to any of you but, if I were at ever so great a distance, I should know.”
“Don’t be too sure of that, Mr. Pen. Sometimes the dearest to us perish, and we know nothing of it; but I prefer your view. You dreamt of poor John? What did you see? Alas! dreams are the only ways of divining anything about him now!”
“And your father is as determined as ever?”
“We never speak on the subject. It has disappeared like so many other things. Why continue a fruitless discussion which only embittered him and wore me out? If any critical moment should come, if—one must say it plainly—my father should be like to die—then I should speak, you need not fear.”
“I never feared that you would do everything the best sister, the bravest friend, could do.”
“Do not praise me too much. I tell you I am doing nothing, and have done nothing for years; and sometimes it strikes me with terror. If anything should happen suddenly! My father is an old man; but talking to him now is of no use; we must risk it. What did you see in your dream?”