No answer, even then, only the trembling of the little hand. Dark as it was, she turned her head yet more away, laying her other cheek upon the window.
'Are we friends now?' he said somewhat lower.
'Mr. Rollo'—she began. But the tremor had found its way to the girl's voice, and she broke off short.
'Well?' said he. 'That is one of the parties. I meant, Mr.
Rollo and Hazel.'
'Be quiet!' she said impatiently,—'and let me speak.' But what
Hazel wanted to say, did not immediately appear.
He answered by a clasp of her hand, and waited.
'I am quiet,'—he suggested at length.
The girl made a desperate effort, and lifted up her head, and sat back in her place, to answer; but managing her voice very much like spun glass, which might give way in the using; and evidently choosing her words with great care, every now and then just missing the wrong one.
'You go on making statements,' she said, catching her breath, 'and I—have taken up none of them, because I cannot,—because if,—I mean, I have let them all pass, Mr. Rollo.'—If truth demanded a greater sacrifice just then, it could not be because this one was small.
'I know,' he answered. 'Will you do better now? What mistake has your silence led me into, or left me in?'