“Even when I seemed most smitten by Madge, by her piquant Americanism, I told myself I was not sure that love had anything to do with my feelings. Now I know it had not.”
His eyes filled suddenly with a kind of staring wonder as he cried out, in a low, startled undertone:
“Am I inferring to myself that this sudden admiration for Zillah Robart has any element of love in it?”
He smiled at his own unuttered answer. The cab pulled up at the door of the office at that moment. He came back sharply to everyday things.
CHAPTER XIII.
A DEMON.
Madge Finisterre awoke early on the morning after that discussion with herself anent Hammond’s possible proposal.
With startling suddenness, as she lay still a moment, a vision of the pastor of Balhang came up before her mind. Then a strange thing happened to her, for a yearning sense of home-sickness suddenly filled her.
She tried to laugh at herself for her “childishness,” as she called it, and sprang from her bed to prepare for her bath. Standing for one instant by the bedside, she murmured:
“But, after all, it is time I was paddling across again. Who ever heard of anyone from our side staying here through the winter? I must think this all out seriously. Anyway, I’ll get my bath, and dress, and go for a stroll before breakfast. They say that one ought to see suburban London pouring over the bridges into London city in the early morning. I’ll go this morning.”