The Gold of Chickaree — Part 16

'But I mean—I do not know how to tell you,' she said, covering her face with her hands. 'When he had grown so good—and I had not,—I thought, perhaps, that was the reason. I thought of it last winter, before this came; and I have never seen him since—but once. I might seem—different—to him, you know,' Hazel added, in her girlish way. Then she took her hands down and looked at Gyda, searching for her answer. But Gyda gently smiled.

'I think you'll soon know,' she said. 'Suppose you don't think any more about it, till he comes.'

Hazel was silent a few minutes, but thinking all the while as hard as she could. She was in no hurry now for Mr. Rollo to come; her dread of seeing him again was extreme. And by this time another matter claimed her attention, over and above everything else; she must get home while she could. If physical prostration and reaction went on at the rate they had begun, it would not take much longer to make the scramble over the hill a sheer impossibility.

'I must go,' she said abruptly. 'But you will let me come once more?'

Gyda was about to answer, when she turned her head sharply towards the door. Her ears caught a sound in that direction, and the next instant Wych Hazel's ears caught it too; the sound of steps, quick steps, a man's steps, coming along the flag-stones outside the cottage. A hand on the door, the door open, and Rollo himself was there.

He came in with the same quick, energetic footstep, looking grave, certainly, but brown and ruddy, like a man with all his forces about him, and with a bright greeting ready for Gyda. And then his face changed suddenly, and his manner. He came up to Wych Hazel’s side, bent down to take her hand, and said with grave earnestness and all his wonted deferential gentleness,

One could almost have heard the bolts and bars with which, at the sound of his footsteps, the girl shut herself in. But all colour was shut off as well. She rose to her feet, laying one hand on the chair back to steady herself, and answered simply, ‘I am just going.’ And she turned to Gyda. But Rollo prevented her.

‘Won’t you sit down again?’ said he. ‘A minute or two? I have something to say to you, and now is the best time?’

He turned to Gyda, but the old Norwegian was already leaving the room, and the two were alone. And perhaps to give her time—or himself—he stood for a moment still and thoughtful by the side of the fireplace. And Hazel, who had thought she would take the first moment that offered to clear her name of the blot left upon it, sat in a sort of spell, and could not speak.