"It was more unnecessary than you are aware off," he said with a smile and turning one of his deep looks away from her.
"Are we fast here for all night, Mr. Carleton?" she said presently.
"I am afraid so--I believe so--I have been out to examine and the storm is very thick."
"You need not look so about it for me," said Fleda;--"I don't care for it at all now."
And a long-drawn breath half told how much she had cared for it, and what a burden was gone.
"You look very little like breasting hardships," said Mr. Carleton, bending on her so exactly the look of affectionate care that she had often had from him when she was a child, that Fleda was very near overcome again.
"O you know," she said, speaking by dint of great force upon herself,--"You know the will is everything, and mine is very good--"
But he looked extremely unconvinced and unsatisfied.
"I am so comforted to see you sitting there, sir," Fleda went on gratefully,--"that I am sure I can bear patiently all the rest."
His eye turned away and she did not know what to make of his gravity. But a moment after he looked again and spoke with his usual manner.