Once again the calm aloofness of his tone sounded overdone to Edward’s ear, but it did not for a moment take in his hearer. (“Poor fellow, how hard he is trying to be good! I suppose it is a beautiful sight, and I must not be outdone.”) There was the gentlest rebuke in her sorrowful little voice as she answered—
“I know that you are not likely to be joking to-day; but when you ask that you seem to be mocking me.”
“Then why do you refuse?”
She dropped her eyes to the carpet, and gave him the opportunity of verifying that the large white lids were a little swollen and discoloured with weeping. He had to count thirty clock-beats before her answer came. (“If I give in now, I am done for,” she was saying to herself. “At the present moment I feel as if Edward would make up for everything; as if nothing in the world would be of any value without him, but I know all the while that I do not really think so.”) She raised her eyes slowly, as if tears made them difficult to lift.
“It would be better for me; but would it be better for Camilla?”
In the tension of the moment neither of them noticed Bonnybell’s unwonted use of Mrs. Tancred’s Christian name. (She must have been mistaken in thinking that Edward looked white as he stood by his sister’s grave. If he was white then, what was he now?)
“Do not misunderstand me,” she went on, almost under her breath, but quite distinctly; “what I mean to say is that I do not see how things are changed since I was sent away because she was too ill to have the worry and anxiety of me.”
If Bonnybell’s eyes had found it hard to raise themselves, Edward’s lips found it harder still to frame the few words of his response.
“She is in stronger health than she was then.”
“For the moment, yes; but it may be only a reprieve. She told me herself that she looked upon it only as a reprieve.”