"No. I wouldn't marry him ... even if he wanted me—which he doesn't. I haven't fallen that far."
"Glad to hear you say that," answered Lady Farquhar with a sigh of relief. She took the girl in her arms and patted one of the shoulders over which the hair cascaded. "My dear, it's hard. You're intense and emotional. But you've got to—to buck up, as James says. You're brave—and you're strong-willed. Make a winning fight."
"What about ... Ned?"
"Does he suspect?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I think he does. But you know how generous he is. He never says anything, or avoids the subject of his cousin in any way." She added, after an instant: "Ned knows that I don't ... love him—that is, in one way. He says he is ready to wait till that comes."
"Ned Kilmeny is a man out of a million."
Moya nodded. "Yes. That's why this is so unfair to him. What ought I to do? Shall I break the engagement? That's what I want to do, but it will hurt him a good deal."
"Wait. Give yourself and him a chance. In a few days we'll be started home."
"That's what I've been telling myself. Everything here reminds me of—him. It will be different then, I try to think. But—down in my heart I don't think it will."
"And I know it will," the matron told her promptly. "Time, my dear, heals all our woes. Youth has great recuperative power. In a year you will wonder how he ever cast such a spell over you."