I
am to see my son, I must forgive her for taking you away from us." The
words came from me without premeditation. It was not calculation this
time, but sheer instinct that impelled me to test her in this way, once
more, by a direct reference to George. She was so close to me that I
felt her breath quiver on my cheek. Her eyes had been fixed on my face a
moment before, but they now wandered away from it constrainedly. One of
her hands trembled a little on my shoulder, and she took it off.

"Thank you for trying to make our parting easier to me," she said,
quickly, and in a lower tone than she had spoken in yet. I made no
answer, but still looked her anxiously in the face. For a few seconds
her nimble delicate fingers nervously folded and refolded the letter
from her aunt, then she abruptly changed her position.

"The sooner I write, the sooner it will be over," she said, and
hurriedly turned away to the paper-case on the side-table.

How was the change in her manner to be rightly interpreted? Was she hurt
by what I had said, or was she secretly so much affected by it, in the
impressionable state of her mind at that moment, as to be incapable of
exerting a young girl's customary self-control? Her looks, actions, and
language might bear either interpretation. One striking omission had
marked her conduct when I had referred to George's return. She had not
inquired when I expected him back. Was this indifference? Surely not.
Surely indifference would have led her to ask the conventionally civil
question which ninety-nine persons out of a hundred would have addressed
to me as a matter of course. Was she, on her side, afraid to trust
herself to speak of George at a time when an unusual tenderness was
aroused in her by the near prospect of saying farewell? It might
be--it might not be--it might be. My feeble reason took the side of my
inclination; and, after vibrating between Yes and No, I stopped where I
had begun--at Yes.

She finished the letter in a few minutes, and dropped it into the
post-bag the moment it was done.

"Not a word more," she said, returning to me with a sigh of relief--"not
a word about my aunt or my going away till the time comes. We have two
more days; let us make the most of them."

Two more days! Eight-and-forty hours still to pass; sixty minutes in
each of those hours; and every minute long enough to bring with it
an event fatal to George's future! The bare thought kept my mind in a
fever. For