"Is she so very pretty, Peter?"
I stared up at the moon without answering.
"I wonder if you bother her with your Epictetus and--and
dry-as-dust quotations?"
I bit my lips and stared up at the moon.
"Or perhaps she likes your musty books and philosophy?"
But presently, finding that I would not speak, Charmian began to
sing, very sweet and low, as if to herself, yet, when I chanced
to glance towards her, I found her mocking eyes still watching
me. Now the words of her song were these: "O, my luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O, my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune."
And so, at last, unable to bear it any longer, I rose and, taking
my candle, went into my room and closed the door. But I had been
there scarcely five minutes when Charmian knocked.
"Oh, Peter! I wish to speak to you--please." Obediently I opened
the door.
"What is it, Charmian?"
"You dropped this from your pocket when you took out your
tinder-box so clumsily!" said she, holding towards me a crumpled
paper. And looking down at it, I saw that it was Black George's
letter to Prudence.
Now, as I took it from her, I noticed that her hand trembled,
while in her eyes I read fear and trouble; and seeing this, I
was, for a moment, unwontedly glad, and then wondered at myself.
"You--did not read it--of course?" said I, well knowing that she
had.
"Yes, Peter--it lay open, and--"
"Then," said I, speaking my thought aloud, "you know that she
loves George."
"He means you harm," said she, speaking with her head averted,
"and, if he killed you--"
"I should be spared a deal of sorrow, and--and mortification,
and--other people would be no longer bothered by Epictetus and
dry-as-dust quotations." She turned suddenly, and, crossing to
the open doorway, stood leaning there. "But, indeed," I went on
hurriedly, "there is no chance of such a thing happening--not the
remotest. Black George's bark is a thousand times worse than his
bite; this letter means nothing, and--er--nothing at all," I
ended, somewhat lamely, for she had turned and was looking at me
over her shoulder.
"If he has to 'wait and wait, and follow you and follow you'?"
said she, in the same low tone.
"Those are merely the words of a half-mad pedler," said I.
"'And your blood will go soaking, and soaking into the grass'!"