Page:A fool in spots (IA foolinspots00riveiala).pdf/99

 thought, but what should she do with her holiday. She had lost her usual spirits, she had forgotten to be brave. The letter, maybe, or the stranger guest, had made the pale color in her cheeks; the eyelids drooped heavily on the tear-wet face, and checked the songs that most days welled perpetually over unthinking lips.

She had never told of Robert's treatment of her; of his cold leave-taking, his altered look, for her to remember always. She had been bearing it in silence. Bred to the nicest sense of honorable good faith, she had kept it alone. But to-day she was weakening; she was agitated, and in a condition of feverish suspense and changeful mind.

Sunrays shone upon her hair as she leaned against the arch, her head bowed on her clasped hands, her slender figure shaken with grief. She heard voices and quick treading on the gravel walk.

"You haven't aged at all, though it has been eleven years since I was here."

"Life goes fairly smooth with me; and you have been well, I trust." She knew that was the Major's voice, and in the lightning flash of her unerring woman's instinct she knew the other, as he said:

"I have been blessed with sound body, but life has passed roughly with me since my mother died. You have heard it?"