‘You go to thunder!’ I burst out, for my throat was hot and sore with grief for him.
‘I think I’d rather go to sleep,’ he replied, still smiling. I could not speak, and was glad of the chance of being alone with Dandy.
When I came in I found him sitting with his head in his arms upon the table fast asleep. I made him tea, forced him to take a warm bath, and sent him to bed, while I went to Mrs. Mavor. I went with a fearful heart, but that was because I had forgotten the kind of woman she was.
She was standing in the light of the window waiting for me. Her face was pale but steady, there was a proud light in her fathomless eyes, a slight smile parted her lips, and she carried her head like a queen.
‘Come in,’ she said. ‘You need not fear to tell me. I saw him ride home. He has not failed, thank God! I am proud of him; I knew he would be true. He loves me’—she drew in her breath sharply, and a faint colour tinged her cheek—‘but he knows love is not all—ah, love is not all! Oh! I am glad and proud!’
‘Glad!’ I gasped, amazed.
‘You would not have him prove faithless!’ she said with proud defiance.
‘Oh, it is high sentimental nonsense,’ I could not help saying.
‘You should not say so,’ she replied, and her voice rang clear. ‘Honour, faith, and duty are sentiments, but they are not nonsense.’
In spite of my rage I was lost in amazed admiration of the high spirit of the woman who stood up so straight before me. But, as I told how worn and broken he was, she listened with changing colour and swelling bosom, her proud courage all gone, and only love, anxious and pitying, in her eyes.