Page:E Nesbit - Man and Maid (1906).djvu/40



“Oh! not any more, not any more,” she cried. “I can’t bear it.”

“Hush,” I said, taking her hands strongly in mine. “I’ve played the fool; so have you. We must play the man now. The people in the village have seen the lights—that’s all. They think we’re burglars. They can’t get in. Keep quiet, and they’ll go away.”

But when they did go away they left the local constable on guard. He kept guard like a man till daylight began to creep over the hill, and then he crawled into the hayloft and fell asleep, small blame to him.

But through those long hours I sat beside her and held her hand. At first she clung to me as a frightened child clings, and her tears were the prettiest, saddest things to see. As we grew calmer we talked.

“I did it to frighten my cousin,” I owned. “I meant to have told you to-day, I mean yesterday, only you went away. I am Lawrence Sefton, and the place is to go either to me or to my cousin Selwyn. And I wanted to frighten him off it. But you, why did you?”

Even then I couldn’t see. She looked at me.