"Thank you," she returned feebly. "And you are going on with the business?" her voice rising as she spoke.
"We will talk of that later, Ann. I was told not to let you talk long. I shall endeavour to invest your money so as to give you a reasonable return—it will take time."
He did not succeed in diverting her attention. She put out a thin hand and caught his sleeve. "Do you think me unreasonable, James?"
"Yes," he said, and it needed courage.
"I was sure you would say so." The great blue eyes, larger for the wasted setting of nature's wonderful jewels, looked up at him in dumb appeal. "Won't you think a little of how I feel—and—and shall feel?"
"Think a little—a little?" he returned; "I have done nothing else but think."
"You don't answer me, James." There was the old quiet, persistent way he had known in many happy days, reinforced by hysteric incapacity to comprehend the maze of difficulties in which he was caught.
"It is a pity I did not die," she said, "that would have saved you all this trouble."
He felt the cruelty of her words as he broke away and left the room. McGregor had waited, and hearing his story said, "It will pass. You must not mind it—she is hardly sane."
James Penhallow mounted and rode to the village, was duly shaved, and went on to the post-office. Mrs. Crocker rotund and rosy came out and handed him as he sat in the saddle a sheaf of letters. "Yes, Mrs. Penhallow is better, thank you." As he rode away the reins on Dixy's neck, he read his letters and stuffed them in his pocket until he came to one, over which he lingered long. It ran thus: