"The best I could just at the moment. I never promised to leave you with
Mrs. Busby always, did I?"
"But you were in England, and busy," said Rotha. "It seemed—No, it didn't seem very natural that you should forget all about me, for I did not think it was at all like you; but that was what people said."
"And Rotha believed?"
"I almost believed it at last," said Rotha, very sorry to confess the fact.
"What do you think now?"
"I think I was mistaken. But, Mr. Digby, three years is a long time; and after all, why should you remember me? I was nothing to you; only a child that you had been very kind to."
He was silent. What was she to him indeed? And what sort of relations was he to maintain between them now? She was not a child any longer. Here was a tall, graceful girl, albeit dressed in exceedingly plain garments; the garments could not hide and even rather emphasized the fact, for she was graceful in spite of them. And the promise of the child's face was abundantly fulfilled in the woman. Features very fine, eyes of changing and flashing power, all the indications that he well remembered of a nature passionate, tender, sensitive and strong; while there was also a certain veil of sweetness and patience over them all, which he did not remember. Mr. Southwode began dimly to perceive that he could not take up things just where he left them; what he left was not in existence. In place of the passionate, variable, wilful child, here was a developed, sensitive, and withal very beautiful woman. What was he to do with her? or what could he do for her?
Unconsciously, the two had begun slowly pacing towards the house, and Rotha was the one to break the silence. Happily, her companion's scruples did not enter her head.
"What brought you here, Mr. Digby? How ever came you to Tanfield?"
"To look after that little girl you thought I had forgotten," he said with a slight smile.