Those very gentle and delicate tones of sympathy and kindness were too much to bear. The hand was snatched away to be pressed to her face. O that those old times were back again, and she a child that could ask his protection! no one to give it now.
He was silent a moment. Fleda's head bowed beneath the mental pressure.
"Has Dr. Gregory returned?"
The negative answer was followed by a half-uttered exclamation of longing checked midway, but sufficiently expressive of her want.
"Do you trust me?" he said, after another second of pausing.
"Perfectly!" said Fleda, amidst her tears, too much excited to know what she was saying, and in her simplicity half forgetting that she was not a child still; "more than any one in the world!"
The few words he had spoken, and the manner of them, had curiously borne her back years in a minute; she seemed to be under his care more than for the drive home. He did not speak again for a minute; when he did, his tone was very quiet, and lower than before.
"Give me what a friend can have in charge to do for you, and it shall be done."
Fleda raised her head, and looked out of the window, in a silence of doubt. The carriage stopped at Mrs. Evelyn's.
"Not now," said Mr. Carleton, as the servant was about to open the door "drive round the square till I speak to you."