CHAPTER X

It was on a Thursday in the week, and nearly at the end of the third month of my sojourn

in Cumberland.

In the morning, when I went down into the breakfast room at the usual hour, Miss Halcombe,

for the first time since I'd known her, was absent from her customary place at the table.

Miss Fairley was out on the lawn.

She bowed to me, but did not come in.

Not a word had dropped from my lips, or from hers, that could unsettle either of us.

And yet the same unacknowledged sense of embarrassment made a shrink alike for meeting one another

alone.

She waited on the lawn, and I waited in the breakfast room till Mrs. Vessy or Miss Halcombe came

in.

How quickly I should have joined her, how readily we should have shaken hands and glided

into our customary talk, only a fortnight ago.

In a few minutes Miss Halcombe entered, she had a preoccupied look, and she made her

apologies for being late, rather absently.

I have been detained, she said, by a consultation with Mr. Fairley on a domestic matter, which

she was to speak to me about.

Miss Fairley came in from the garden, and the usual morning greeting passed between us.

Her hand struck colder to mine than ever.

She did not look at me, and she was very pale.

Even Mrs. Vessy noticed it when she entered the room a moment after.

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