“Are you not well, Richard?”
“Yes, I am well,” I answered. I scarcely knew my own voice.
“Is your grandfather worse?”
“No, Dorothy; he seems better to-day.”
She stood seemingly irresolute, her eyes new lifted, now falling before mine. Her slender arms bare, save for the little puff at the shoulders; her simple dress drawn a little above the waist, then falling straight to the white slipper. How real the ecstasy of that moment, and the pain of it!
“Why do you not coarse over, as you used to?” she asked, in a low tone.
“I am very busy,” I replied evasively; “Mr. Carvel cannot attend to his affairs.” I longed to tell her the whole truth, but the words would not come.
“I hear you are managing the estate all alone,” she said.
“There is no one else to do it.”
“Richard,” she cried, drawing closer; “you are in trouble. I—I have seen it. You are so silent, and—and you seem to have become older. Tell me, is it your Uncle Grafton?”