Leam was not usually frightened at lightning, but now, perhaps because her whole being was overwrought and strung, she started and crouched down with a sense of awe strangely unlike her usual self.
"Come, we are going to have a storm," said Edgar, whom every manifestation of weakness claiming his superior protection infinitely pleased and seemed to endear her yet more to him. "We must be going, my darling, else I shall have you caught in the rain. We shall just have time to get to the rectory before it comes on, and they are waiting for us."
"I would rather not go to the rectory to-night," said Leam with a sudden return to her old shy self.
"No? Why, my sweet?" he said lovingly. "How can I live through the evening without you?"
"Can you not? Do you really wish me to go?" she answered seriously.
"Of course I wish it: how should I not? But tell me why you raise an objection. Why would you rather not go?"
"I would rather be alone and think of you than only see you at the rectory with all those people," she answered simply.
"But we have had all the people about here, and yet we have been pretty much alone," he said.
"We could not be together at the rectory, and"—she blushed, but her eyes were full of more than love as she raised them to his face—"I could not bear that any one should come between us to-day. Better be alone at home, where I can think of you with no one to interrupt me."
"It is a disappointment, but who could refuse such a plea and made in such a voice?" said Edgar, who felt that perhaps she was right in her instinct, and who at all events knew that he should be spared something that would be a slight effort in Adelaide's own house. "I shall spoil you, I know, but I cannot refuse you anything when you look like that. Very well: you shall go home if you wish it, my beloved, and I will make your excuses."