"Do I?"
"You are wonderfully altered!"
"Yes, I know it!"
"What is it ails you?"
"Nothing."
"What does this mean?"—touching her black dress with a jealous pang of fear that his innocent rival, the "lout who gave her the sixpenny Prayer Book, and inscribed his name with a crooked pin on the fly-leaf," is numbered with the dead; and that the hollow cheeks, dejected droop of the head, and crape-covered garments are for him.
The tears crowd into her eyes; they know the way there so well now. She turns away, and leans against the banisters to hide them.
A light breaks in upon him. He remembers that she had a brother, her girlish rhapsodies about whom used to make him rather impatient.
"I see," he says, in a softer tone; "forgive me for asking."
Encouraged by his voice, she lifts her face towards him with a tearful smile.