Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/464

 “How did it happen?” he asked, “your coming down?”

“After I saw you last—I was very bad. My stupid old heart And the doctor said that I must get away, to the sea or somewhere. Then—what do you think?—the dears, all of them in Brockett's put their heads together and got me quite a lot of money Oh! the darlings, and they just as poor as church mice themselves. Of course I couldn't insult them by not taking it. They'd have been hurt for ever—so I just pocketed my pride and came down here.”

“Why Treliss?” asked Peter.

“Well, hadn't you so often talked about it? Always, I'd connected you with it in my mind and thought that one day I'd come down and see it. I suggested it to the doctor—he said it was the very place. I used to hope that one day you'd be with me here to explain it, but I never expected it not so soon  not like this.”

Her voice faltered a little and her hand held his more tightly.

They were silent. The sounds of the world came, muffled, up to their window, but they were only conscious of one another.

Peter knew that, in another instant, he would tell her everything. He had always told her everything—that is what she had been there for, some one, like an elder sister, to whom he might go and confess.

At last it came. Very softly she asked him:

“Peter, what's the matter? Why are you here? What's happened?”

Staring before him out of the window, seeing nothing but the high white light of the upper sky, his heart, as it seemed to him, lying in his hands like a stone to be tossed lightly out there into space, he told her:

“Everything's happened. Clare has run off with my best friend It has just happened like that. I don't blame her, she liked him better—but I—didn't know—it was going to happen.”

He didn't look at her, but he heard her catch her breath sharply and he felt her hand tighten on his. They were silent for a long time and he was dimly aware in some