'If I did not care for her, perhaps it would be better not to interfere, as you term it,' I hotly rejoined. 'But as it happens, I do care for her, and therefore I cannot see her so changed without making some effort to help her.'
'No one could doubt your love for her, Mary,' he replied in a low voice, laying his hand gently upon mine.
'Then how can I help being anxious, especially when I see that it is not good for her to be moping alone? Any one might see that it is doing her harm. Cannot you see the difference in her of late?' He made no reply; and taking his assent for granted, I went on: 'Do you know I am sadly afraid that she is fretting'—— I did not like to say plainly about Arthur Trafford, but added: 'She is beginning to look just as she did in the first shock of finding that she had lost Arthur Trafford!—Ah, spare my roses!'
He was mercilessly, though I think unconsciously, tearing to pieces a beautiful bunch of light and dark roses, which had been given to me by one of the cottagers, scattering the leaves in all directions.
'I—beg your pardon.'
'I really think you ought, sir!' was my playful rejoinder. 'If my path is to be strewed with roses, we need not be so extravagant as that about it. I shall not trust you to carry flowers again.'
He remained so long silent, standing in the same position, that I was about to ask him what he was thinking of, when he impetuously turned towards me, and hurriedly said: 'Why should there be any longer delay, Mary? Why cannot our marriage take place at once—next week? For God's sake, do not let us go on like this!'
'Go on like this!' I repeated, looking up into his face. 'Go on like this, Philip?'
'Say it shall be soon—say when?' catching my hands in both of his with a grip which made me wince, as he hurriedly continued: 'Why do you wish all this delay?'
Had it been spoken in a different tone—had he only looked differently! I tried to believe that it was the eagerness of happiness in his face; but alas! it looked terribly like misery! For a moment my heart stood still in an agony of fear; then I put the disloyal doubt aside, telling myself that it was my too exalted notions which had led to disappointment. I had expected so much more than any woman has a right to expect; and so forth. Then after a moment or two, I honestly replied: 'I do not wish it, Philip. Of course I will say next week, if you wish it; and'—with a faint little attempt at a jest—'if you do not mind about my having fewer furbelows to pack?'