“I don’t care,” she added, after a pause; “I have found you again.”
“Then dry your poor eyes,” he said comfortingly; “and don’t think any more of the worries. Don’t you remember how happy you made me once, when I was in desperate straits--when all the world cast me off but you? You are still the only being who knows me and cares whether I live or die. You are neither going to starve, Yvonne, nor die in a workhouse. As long as I have a penny you shall have half of it. Don’t think of anything more than the immediate future, little woman. We will manage that all right. Be comforted.”
He spoke earnestly, leaning forward with his arm on the bed. The precariousness of his own fortunes scarcely occurred to him. He was deeply moved. At that moment he would have cut off his right hand for her.
Yvonne thanked him with her eyes, which grew very soft and grateful. His man’s strength brought her comfort. She trusted him implicitly, as she had all her life trusted those who were kind to her. She closed her eyes for a moment with a little sigh of relief. She was so content to yield to the generous hand that was taking the terrible burden from her shoulders, felt as if she could go to sleep like a tired child. When she opened her eyes they were almost smiling.
“I ’ll try to be happy again, so as to thank you, Stephen,” she said.
“Well, here is something for you--what you like--eat one to show me you are comforted.”
He put the paper bag into her hand, and, tilting back his chair, watched her pleased expression as she peeped into the mouth and drew out one of the cakes.
“Oh, how sweet of you!” she said, with a flash of her old sunlight.
Suddenly he rose, and stood, hands in pockets, by the window, frowning absently at the gathering mist of evening outside. A conviction was forcing itself on his mind--a cold douche for his quixotic impulses. Obvious right and common-sense prevailed.
“Yvonne,” he said turning round. “You had no quarrel with Everard, had you, at parting?”
“Oh, no,” she replied, looking up round-eyed from her paper-bag. “He was very kind to me.”
“No. We arranged we should not correspond. He sent me word when he was going out to New Zealand. But I couldn’t let him know--I should be ashamed. Oh, no, Stephen, I could n’t write to him and say, ‘I am a beggar now, please give me charity.’ Why should he support me?”