“I’ve sent one of the men ahead with the things; but I thought Mrs. Leath might need me.”
“She didn’t ask for you,” he returned, wondering how he could detain her; but she answered decidedly: “I’d better go.”
He held open the door, picked up his umbrella and followed her out. As they went down the steps she glanced back at him. “You’ve forgotten your mackintosh.”
“I sha’n’t need it.”
She had no umbrella, and he opened his and held it out to her. She rejected it with a murmur of thanks and walked on through the thin drizzle, and he kept the umbrella over his own head, without offering to shelter her.
Rapidly and in silence they crossed the court and began to walk down the avenue. They had traversed a third of its length before Darrow said abruptly: “Wouldn’t it have been fairer, when we talked together yesterday, to tell me what I’ve just heard from Mrs. Leath?”
“Fairer—-?” She stopped short with a startled look.
“If I’d known that your future was already settled I should have spared you my gratuitous suggestions.”
She walked on, more slowly, for a yard or two. “I couldn’t speak yesterday. I meant to have told you today.”
“Oh, I’m not reproaching you for your lack of confidence. Only, if you had told me, I should have been more sure of your really meaning what you said to me yesterday.”
She did not ask him to what he referred, and he saw that her parting words to him lived as vividly in her memory as in his.
“Is it so important that you should be sure?” she finally questioned.
“Not to you, naturally,” he returned with involuntary asperity. It was incredible, yet it was a fact, that for the moment his immediate purpose in seeking to speak to her was lost under a rush of resentment at counting for so little in her fate. Of what stuff, then, was his feeling for her made? A few hours earlier she had touched his thoughts as little as his senses; but now he felt old sleeping instincts stir in him… A rush of rain dashed against his face, and, catching Sophy’s hat, strained it back from her loosened hair. She put her hands to her head with a familiar gesture…He came closer and held his umbrella over her…
At the lodge he waited while she went in. The rain continued to stream down on him and he shivered in the dampness and stamped his feet on the flags. It seemed to him that a long time elapsed before the door opened and she reappeared. He glanced into the house for a glimpse of Anna, but obtained none; yet the mere sense of her nearness had completely altered his mood.
The child, Sophy told him, was doing well; but Mrs. Leath had decided to wait till the surgeon came. Darrow, as they turned away, looked through the gates, and saw the doctor’s old-fashioned carriage by the roadside.
“Let me tell the doctor’s boy to drive you back,” he suggested; but Sophy answered: “No; I’ll walk,” and he moved on toward the house at her side. She expressed no surprise at his not remaining at the lodge, and again they walked on in silence through the rain. She had accepted the shelter of his umbrella, but she kept herself at such a carefully measured distance that even the slight swaying movements produced by their quick pace did not once bring her arm in touch with his; and, noticing this, he perceived that every drop of her blood must be alive to his nearness.
“What I meant just now,” he began, “was that you ought to have been sure of my good wishes.”
She seemed to weigh the words. “Sure enough for what?”
“To trust me a little farther than you did.”
“I’ve told you that yesterday I wasn’t free to speak.”
“Well, since you are now, may I say a word to you?”
She paused perceptibly, and when she spoke it was in so low a tone that he had to bend his head to catch her answer. “I can’t think what you can have to say.”