"There, there," he said, "you'll be better in a minute;" and when she was strong enough to walk, he took her home, Theophil, filled with sudden misgivings, having to see the evening's entertainment to its close.
Mr. Moggridge blamed the bad ventilation, as he tenderly helped Jenny along the few yards to home.
"No," said Jenny, with a big tearing sigh, "I don't think it was that. It was that last poem, I think. It seemed so terrible to think of two people having to part like that; don't you think so, Mr. Moggridge?"
Mr. Moggridge did. "And then," he said, "Miss Strange has such a way of giving it out, it's almost more than human nature can bear."
"Yes; her voice," said Jenny, "seemed like a stream of tears."
When Theophil and Isabel returned from Zion, they seemed so full of real anxiety, as indeed they were, that Jenny's poor heart felt just a passing ray of warmth, a little less cast out into eternal loneliness. She gave the same explanation as to Mr. Moggridge, not significantly, but half intending a kind veiled message to them. "It seemed so terrible to think of two people having to part like that," she said again.
And presently she pleaded weariness to go to bed earlier than usual.
"But don't you hurry, Isabel," said Jenny. "You and Theophil will not see each other for a long time again."
"Sleep well," said Isabel, kissing her; and as she did so, she thought there was a curious convulsiveness in Jenny's embrace.
When she had gone, the two looked at each other. "She seemed strange," said Isabel.