“Let me look at you.” He turned her to the moonlight and lifted her
face. “I don’t know whether you’re horribly pale or whether it’s a
trick of the moon,” he said, “but you look mighty ill: You had better
go straight to bed, preferably without seeing your brother.”
“Why?” she asked, in surprise.
“I don’t want this spook story to get around, for one thing,” he said.
“And for another--oh well, the other doesn’t matter.”
Leslie realized that she was walking at a much slower pace than her
physical weakness justified. She was still a little shaky, but in
every sense had recovered from the shock. Too sane to believe in
ghosts, she had, nevertheless, been shaken by the terrible experience.
She leaned heavily on Dick’s arm as they paced up the avenue to the
house, turning on to the grass that Arthur should not hear their
footsteps and come out to give them a boisterous welcome. Presently,
with a sigh, she dropped his arm.
“I’m glad I went out,” she said, in a low voice. “And I’m rather
glad----” She did not finish the sentence.
The silence that followed was a little disturbing for both of them.
Suddenly she faced him.
“Dick, do you want me to marry your brother?”
He did not answer.
“Do you--really?”
She heard his sigh in the dark. She could not see his face, for they
stood in the shadow of a great cedar immediately before the house.
“I don’t know,” he said. There was a bleakness in his voice she had
heard once before. “It isn’t a question of my liking. I can offer you
no reason why you should not marry him. You must do what you want,
Leslie. The decision must rest entirely with you--and if I were a
praying man, I would spend the night praying that you did right.”
“Do you wish me to marry him?” she asked again.
“I cannot tell you.” His voice was hard, and there swept over her a
wave of unreasonable anger and resentment against his detachment.
“I won’t ask you that question again,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Good-night, Dick.”
She ran into the hall and up to her room, and long after she had gone,
he stood where she had left him, looking wistfully at the door which
had closed upon her.
With something like despair at his heart, Dick Alford walked quickly
along the road toward Fontwell Cutting. He had something to distract
his mind for the moment.
There was no sign of the car, and, instead of passing through the
cutting gates, he continued over the brow of the hill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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