"Oh, papa, papa! if you would but come back!"
For a minute or two he thought it would be kinder to leave her
fancying herself unobserved; he had even made a retrograde step or
two, on tip-toe; but then he heard the miserable sobbing again. It
was farther than his mother could walk, or else, be the sorrow what
it would, she was the natural comforter of this girl, her visitor.
However, whether it was right or wrong, delicate or obtrusive, when
he heard the sad voice talking again, in such tones of uncomforted,
lonely misery, he turned back, and went to the green tent under the
ash-tree. She started up when he came thus close to her; she tried to
check her sobs, and instinctively smoothed her wet tangled hair back
with her hands.
He looked down upon her with grave, kind sympathy, but he did not
know exactly what to say.
"Is it lunch-time?" said she, trying to believe that he did not see
the traces of her tears and the disturbance of her features--that he
had not seen her lying, sobbing her heart out there.
"I don't know. I was going home to lunch. But--you must let me
say it--I couldn't go on when I saw your distress. Has anything
happened?--anything in which I can help you, I mean; for, of course,
I've no right to make the inquiry, if it is any private sorrow, in
which I can be of no use."
She had exhausted herself so much with crying, that she felt as if
she could neither stand nor walk just yet. She sate down on the seat,
and sighed, and turned so pale, he thought she was going to faint.
"Wait a moment," said he,--quite unnecessarily, for she could not
have stirred,--and he was off like a shot to some spring of water
that he knew of in the wood, and in a minute or two he returned with
careful steps, bringing a little in a broad green leaf, turned into
an impromptu cup. Little as it was, it did her good.
"Thank you!" she said: "I can walk back now, in a short time. Don't
stop."
"You must let me," said he: "my mother wouldn't like me to leave you
to come home alone, while you are so faint."
So they remained in silence for a little while; he, breaking off and
examining one or two abnormal leaves of the ash-tree, partly from the
custom of his nature, partly to give her time to recover.
"Papa is going to be married again," said she, at length.
She could not have said why she told him this; an instant before she
spoke, she had no intention of doing so. He dropped the leaf he held
in his hand, turned round, and looked at her. Her poor wistful eyes
were filling with tears as they met his, with a dumb appeal for
sympathy. Her look was much more eloquent than her words. There was
a momentary pause before he replied, and then it was more because he
felt that he must say something than that he was in any doubt as to
the answer to the question he asked.