“Good heavens! what are you doing?” said Micky’s voice at her shoulder. She had not heard him come into the room; it was only when he bent and caught her 214 hand back from the flames that she realised what she had been going to do. She looked up at him with a sick smile.
“I thought it wouldn’t burn,” she said stupidly.
A flash of alarm crept into his eyes; she looked so white.
He kept her hand in his holding it firmly.
“What’s the matter?” he asked gently.
There was something so kind in his voice that for a moment she felt as if she would have given her soul to have been able to lean her head against his shoulder and sob out the truth; all she had just heard and all the miserable hope and fear that had tortured her for the past few weeks.
“What is it?” Micky said again anxiously.
She dragged her hand free of his; she remembered that he, too, had hated Raymond, that he, too, would be glad when he knew of this nightmare that had suddenly swooped down upon her.
She rose to her feet, holding fast to the chair-back to steady herself.
“There isn’t anything the matter; but I should like to go home––I’m tired, that’s all; I’m only tired.”