'I forgot. Oh, how careless!—how wrong of me! Aunt Milly, will you please go after him?'
Mildred obeyed. She found him leaning against the open garden door—white, and almost gasping.
'My dear boy, you are ill. Shall I call Dr. Heriot to you?' but he shook his head impatiently.
'Nonsense—I am all right; at least, I shall be in a moment. Don't stay, Aunt Milly. I would not have Cardie see me for worlds; he would be blaming Olive, and I know she forgot.'
'The hymn we were singing, do you mean?'
'Yes; she—mamma—was so fond of it. We used to have it every night in her room. She asked for it almost at the last. Sun of my soul; the hymn of hymns, she called it. It was just like Livy to forget. I can stand any but that one—it beats me. Ah, Aunt Milly!' his boyish tones suddenly breaking beyond control.
'Dear Rex, don't mind; these feelings do you honour. I love you the better for them;' pressing the fair head tenderly to her shoulder, as she had done Chrissy's. She was half afraid he might resent the action, but for the moment his manhood was helpless.
'That is just what she used to do,' he said, with a half sob. 'You remind me of her somehow, Aunt Milly. There's some one coming after us. Please—please let me go,'—the petulant dignity of seventeen years asserting itself again,—but he seemed still so white and shaken that she ventured to detain him.
'Roy, dear, it is only Olive. There is nothing of which to be ashamed.'
'Livy, oh, I don't mind her. I thought it was Dick or Heriot. Livy, how could you play that thing when you know—you know——' but the rest of the speech was choked somehow.