'Now!' As he echoed the word, bending to look at me again, I noticed a swift change of expression in his face—an eager, startled, yet not altogether assured look.
'Yes; I have had a letter this evening, telling me that Philip expected to be able to sail within a week or so of sending it, and he may be here any time during the next month.'
'Philip!'
'Mr Dallas you know. We are to be married.'
He was silent; and after waiting a moment for a reply which came not, I grew a little conscious of the awkwardness of talking about my lover to him, and not the more pleased with him for making me feel so. A little confusedly, I murmured something about having hoped that they would be friends; so many Philip had known must be scattered and lost to him during his long absence, and he was a man of all others to appreciate a friend.
Nettled by his continued silence, I went on: 'If I have expected too much, you yourself are a little to blame for my doing so. You have always made me feel that I might expect something more from you than from other people.'
I saw his hand tighten on the bar of the stile it rested on with a pressure which made the veins look like cords. He threw up his head, and seemed to take counsel with the stars. Was it the pale moonlight which made him look so white and rigid? Had I offended him? What was it? Then arose a new and terrible fear in my mind. Had I misunderstood him—had he misunderstood me—all this time? Had I unwittingly led him to believe me a free woman, and—— Was it possible that he loved me—Robert Wentworth?
Deeply pained as well as ashamed, had I not always believed and asserted that such complications are not brought about by single-minded women? I bowed my head, covering my face with my trembling hands in the bitterness of humiliation. My love for Philip had made all men seem as brothers to me, and it had never for a moment entered my head that my bearing towards them might be misconstrued. Then it must be remembered I was not like a young and attractive girl; nor had I been accustomed to receive lover-like attention. Bewildered and miserable—God forgive me if I had wronged Robert Wentworth in my blindness—I was confusedly trying to recollect what I had last said, so that I might be able to add a few words which would serve as an excuse for leaving him not too abruptly, when he at length spoke. Clear and firm his voice sounded in the stillness, though the words came slowly: 'You have not expected too much, Mary.' I could not say a word; and in my anxiety for him, still lingered. 'You have not expected too much,' he gently repeated. Then seeing that was not enough, he added, in the same low measured tone: 'God helping me, I will be your husband's friend, Mary.'
I put out my hands, involuntarily clasping them together. I think he interpreted the gesture aright. With the old grave smile, he said: 'You must not forget you have a brother as well as a husband, you know.'
'I will not; God bless you, Robert!'—laying my hand for a moment on his.