"I am very sorry," she was saying. "I'm afraid you thought--I'm afraid I was rather silly--in the wood. I was disturbed when you found me." Her words came jerkily. "I had not expected--that is--I did not expect----" She broke off. Her eyes implored him to leave her alone.
She controlled her voice with difficulty.
"Heavens knows!" She laughed, with a pitiful little air of throwing him off the scent. "One gets frightened for no reason sometimes."
"In the country--I'm town-bred." She smiled at him.
He made up his mind, though he felt brutal.
There was a silence. Slowly she lifted shaking hands, warding him off.
"No, no!" she said. "For pity's sake. You are calling her back." Then, struck with a new idea, she grew, if possible, whiter still. "Unless," she said, whispering, "you saw her--you too? Then there is no hope. I thought it was in my mind--only in my mind--but if you saw her too----" Her voice failed.
He thrust in hastily, ready enough to comfort her, but knowing well that the time had not come. Yet he felt like a surgeon at his first operation.
"No, you are mistaken. There was no one. I don't even know who Louise is. Only you mentioned her--once or twice, you see."
"Did I?" she said. Then, with an effort at a commonplace tone: "I was stupidly upset. You must excuse----"
"A ghost," said Alwynne, white to the lips.
Then she spoke, with extraordinary passion--
"If you laugh--it will be wicked if you laugh at me."
"I'm not thinking of laughing," he said, with the petulance of extreme anxiety.
She met his look and shrugged her shoulders.
"Then you think I'm crazy," she began defiantly. "I can't help it, what you think." She changed the subject transparently. "Roger, it's nice here. What are the names of all these flowers? Are those big ones daffodils, or jonquils, or narcissi? I never know the difference. I never remember----" Her voice trailed into silence.
"But look here," he began, and stopped again abruptly, deep in thought.
The flame of the spirit-lamp on the shelf between them flickered and failed, and sputtered up again noisily. Mechanically he rose to extinguish it, and, still absently, cleared the little table of its china and eatables.
Then he sat down once more, and leant forward, his arms on the table, his expression determined, yet very friendly.