“What things?”
“Catastrophe—of what kind, I know not. But I have been seized with a kind of instinctive dread.”
For a few moments I was silent, my arm still about her neat waist. This sudden depression of hers was not reassuring.
“Try and rid yourself of the idea, dearest,” I urged presently. “You have nothing to fear. We may both have enemies, but they will not now dare to attack us. Remember, I am now your husband.”
“And I your wife, Owen,” she said, with a sweet love-look. Then, with a heavy sigh, she gazed thoughtfully away with her eyes fixed upon the darkening sea, and added: “I only fear, dearest—for your sake.”
I was silent again.
“Sylvia,” I said slowly at last, “have you learnt anything—anything fresh which has awakened these strange apprehensions of yours?”
“No,” she faltered, “nothing exactly fresh. It is only a strange and unaccountable dread which has seized me—a dread of impending disaster.”
“Forget it,” I urged, endeavouring to laugh. “All your fears are now without foundation, dearest. Now we are wedded, we will fearlessly face the world together.”
“I have no fear when I am at your side, Owen,” she replied, looking at me pale and troubled. “But when we are parted I—I always fear. The day before yesterday I was full of apprehension all the time you had gone to York. I felt that something was to happen to you.”