“I did not think I should see you to-day,” she said, with monotonous steadiness.
Richard, hot and cold by turns, watched her earnestly.
“I came to try and find you, Bess,” he answered.
There was an indescribable ring of self-scorn in her voice, though she carried her head more bravely and labored less with her breathing.
“I have been much troubled for your sake, Bess.”
She flashed a wonderful look at him, her eyes lighting up like water in the sun. It was sympathy she needed, and the flow of a friend’s words.
“I gave you a promise; I failed to keep it, and I am sorry.”
Jeffray stood like a man confessing his dishonor, for the girl’s self-shame had shaken him, and her eyes were fixed upon his face. She stepped down with sudden noiselessness and stood close to Jeffray, bending towards him a little.
“I know,” she said, hurriedly. “Yes, you were ill; you could not help me; it was no fault of yours. You would have helped me, yes; I know that, and—and I thank you.”
She hung her head again, and swung away from him with a look of miserable and overpowering shame. Her eyes were dull and tearless, her mouth bitter and very sullen. Jeffray stretched out his hand and touched her arm.
She turned her head and looked at him with longing, the color rising to her face.
“Bess, I can’t bear it, this misery of yours. I heard all after I saw you at Thorney Chapel. They tricked you, Dan and Isaac together. It should have been otherwise had I not been in bed.”
A peculiar light kindled in the girl’s eyes. It seemed born of wonder, of incredulity, and some subtle and uprushing joy. Was her shame bitter, then, to this earnest-faced man, so bitter that it could make him stammer, grow fierce, and look at her in a way that made her whole body tingle? Warmth seemed to spread from her heart, up through her brown neck, through all her flesh till she felt alive to the eyes that gazed at hers.
She drooped a little towards him, her hands hanging passive, her lips growing full and tender again, her eyes losing all their thick and sullen thoughtfulness.
“I have been very miserable. I had one joy left to me—”
“The hope that I might see—see you—again. Yes, every day, every day when I could escape from Dan, I have come down through the woods to Holy Cross.”