"Are you in pain?" she asked, agonized.
"Discomfort," he replied. "We will not dignify this by the name of pain.
But I must wait for a time before dictating the letter. There's something
I will ask you to do for me, my dear, meanwhile."
"Yes"--He paused, shifted his position, closed his eyes.
"Have you held any communication with--"
He stopped, for the question irked him. Even at this pass it went against
the grain with him to ask of his daughter news of his son.
But in that pause our maiden's scattered wits very effectually
returned to her.
"With Darcy Faircloth?" she said. And as Charles Verity bowed his head in
assent--"Yes, I should have told you already but--but for all which has
happened. He was here the day before yesterday. He came home from church
with me.--That was my doing, not his, to begin with. You mustn't think he
put himself forward--took advantage, I mean, of your being away. If there
is any blame it is mine."
"Mine, rather--and of long standing. God forgive me!"
But Damaris, fairly launched now upon a wholly welcome topic, would have
none of this.
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