“Do you remember that Sunday afternoon six months ago, when all was hope and sunshine?”
“Redmayne had just joined,” she remarked.
“And to-day he took the chair, so as to crush us. They had it all arranged beforehand. A damnable conspiracy! And we were powerless. It maddens me!”
His tones were those of intense feeling Ella was compelled to comfort.
“You fought splendidly,” she said. “A man can't do more.”
He stopped abruptly in the path and laid both hands on her wrists by her muff. A belated nursery maid wheeling a perambulator eyed them dully.
“Bless you for the words! You cannot tell what your sympathy means to me now.”
By a happy chance he had struck the right note. Tears came into the girl's eyes. For the first time she was able to disassociate the man from his work. She lost her own sense of disappointment in womanly pity for the man who had been defeated while battling against great odds.
“And bless you for the tears standing in those eyes!” said Roderick.
They walked on. Somehow her hand found its way beneath his arm. They spoke but little. Roderick's pulses fluttered with a new hope; but his perceptions into the nature of women were too keen to allow him to force an advantage. He wore his stricken air, yet subtly conveyed to her the deep comfort of her sympathy. He pressed her hand against his side and left her to work out the situation for herself under these excellent conditions.