She was coming along quietly in the afternoon sunshine. I thought her altered. The once pretty blush-rose of her dimpled cheeks had faded; in her soft blue eyes, so like Oliver's, lay a look of sadness. He had been dead about a year now. But the blush came back again, and the eyes lighted up with smiles as I took her hand. Mrs. Cramp went on; she was in a hurry to reach her home, which lay between Islip and Crabb. Jane rang the bell at North Villa.
"Shall I take a run over to Duck Brook to-morrow, Jane, and sit with you in the Inlets, and we'll have a spell of gossip together?"
"I never sit in the Inlets now," she said, in a half whisper, turning her face away.
"Forgive me, Jane," I cried, repenting my thoughtlessness; and she disappeared up the garden path.
Susan opened the door. Her mistress was out, she said, but Miss Clementina was at home. It was Clementina that Jane wanted to see.
Valentine, still weak, was lying on the sofa in the parlour when Jane entered. He got up, all excitement at seeing her, and they sat down together.
"I brought this for Clementina," she said, placing a paper parcel on the table. "It is a pattern which she asked me for. Are you growing stronger?"
"Clementina is about somewhere," he observed; "the others are out. Yes, I am growing stronger; but it seems to me that I am a long while about it."
They sat on in silence, side by side, neither speaking. Valentine took Jane's hand and held it within his own, which rested on his knee. It seemed that they had lost their tongues--as we say to the children.
"Is it all decided?" asked Jane presently. "Quite decided?"
"Quite, Jane. Nothing else is left for me."
She caught her breath with one of those long sighs that tell of inward tribulation.
"I should have been over to see you before this, Jane, but that my legs would not carry me to Duck Brook and back again without sitting down by the wayside. And you--you hardly ever come here now."
A deep flush passed swiftly over Jane's face. She had not liked to call at the troubled house. And she very rarely came so far as Crabb now: there seemed to be no plea for it.
"What will be the end, Val?" she whispered.
Valentine groaned. "I try not to think of it, my dear. When I cannot put all thought of the future from me, it gives me more torment than I know how to bear. If only----"