Again she looks at me, with a sort of astonishment, a little mixed with pain; but she does not say any thing. She goes over to the fire, and stoops to take up the poker.
"Do not!" cry I, hastily, "there is plenty of light!—I mean—" (stammering) "it—it—dazzles me, coming in out of the dark."
As I speak, I retire to a distant chair, as nearly as possible out of the fire-light, and affect to be occupied with Vick, who has jumped up on my lap, and—with all a dog's delicate care not to hurt you really—is pretending severely to bite every one of my fingers. Barbara has returned to the hearth-rug. She looks a little troubled at first; but, after a moment or two, her face regains its usual serene sweetness.
"And I have been here ever since you left me!" she says, presently, with a look of soft gayety. "I have had no visitors! Not even"—(blushing a little)—"the usual one."
"No?" say I, bending down my head over Vick, and allowing her to have a better and more thorough lick at the bridge of my nose than she has ever enjoyed in her life before.
"You did not meet him, I suppose?" she says, interrogatively.
"I!" cry I, starting guiltily, and stammering. "Not I! Why—why should I?"
"Why should not you, rather?" she says, laughing a little. "It is not such a very unusual occurrence?"
"Do you think not?" I say, in a voice whose trembling is painfully perceptible to myself. "You do not think I—I—" ("You do not think I meet him on purpose," I am going to say; but I break off suddenly, aware that I am betraying myself).
"He will come earlier to-morrow to make up for it"—she says, in a low voice, more to herself than to me—"yes"—(clasping her hands lightly in her lap, while the fire-light plays upon the lovely mildness of her happy face, and repeating the words softly)—"yes, he will come earlier to-morrow!"