She grew caressing, and a caressing mood never suited her. She was too thin, too hard about the eyes.
"Now, Jasper, you know——"
"What do you want me to tell you, Rose?"
"Why, everything. Dear lad, do you think it is nothing?"
"I'm not dead, or likely to be."
Their eyes met. There was something in Jasper's that repulsed the girl. She stiffened, and withdrew her hand.
"You know, Jasper, these things sometimes come to us from above. They are messages, divine warnings."
It was her doctrinal phase, and she had inherited it from her mother. Jasper glanced at her uneasily, and then stared at the window. He had never realised it so vividly before that Rose talked to him as though he belonged to her.
"It pulls a man up, and makes him think."
"Yes; only men will put off the thinking. Though I don't believe you are that sort of man, Jasper. You are steady, and sensible, and I know you read your Bible."