Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/166

152 "Then if you are, if you are," the young man cried, "why everything's beautiful and right!"

"It's all I care for and think of now," she went on in her bright devotion, "and I've only wondered and hoped!"

Well, Hugh found for it all a rapid, abundant lucidity. "He was away from home at first, and I had to wait—but I crossed last week, found him and settled it; coming home by Paris, where I had a grand four days' jaw with the fellows there and saw their great specimen of our master: all of which has given him time."

"And now his time's up?" the girl eagerly asked.

"It must be—and we shall see." But Hugh postponed that question to a matter of more moment still. "The thing is that at last I'm able to tell you how I feel the trouble I've brought you."

It made her, quickly colouring, rest grave eyes on him. "What do you know—when I haven't told you—about my 'trouble'?"

"Can't I have guessed, with a ray of intelligence?"—he had his answer ready. "You've