Isabel took his hand, and looked at him with grateful tears in her eyes.
“How good you are to me, Mr. Moody!” she said. “I wish I could tell you how deeply I feel your kindness.”
“You can do it easily,” he answered, with a smile. “Call me ‘Robert’—don’t call me ‘Mr. Moody.’”
She took his arm with a sudden familiarity that charmed him. “If you had been my brother I should have called you ‘Robert,’” she said; “and no brother could have been more devoted to me than you are.”
He looked eagerly at her bright face turned up to his. “May I never hope to be something nearer and dearer to you than a brother?” he asked timidly.
She hung her head and said nothing. Moody’s memory recalled Sharon’s coarse reference to her “sweetheart.” She had blushed when he put the question? What had she done when Moody put his question? Her face answered for her—she had turned pale; she was looking more serious than usual. Ignorant as he was of the ways of women, his instinct told him that this was a bad sign. Surely her rising color would have confessed it, if time and gratitude together were teaching her to love him? He sighed as the inevitable conclusion forced itself on his mind.
“I hope I have not offended you?” he said sadly.
“Oh, no.”
“I wish I had not spoken. Pray don’t think that I am serving you with any selfish motive.”
“I don’t think that, Robert. I never could think it of you.”