At this, for a minute, their lightness gave way to
their gravity; it was as if the long look they exchanged
held them together. “It will only depend
on yourself—if you’ll watch with me.”
“Are you afraid?” she asked.
“Don’t leave me now,” he went on.
“Are you afraid?” she repeated.
“Do you think me simply out of my mind?”
he pursued instead of answering. “Do I
merely strike you as a harmless lunatic?”
“No,” said May Bartram. “I
understand you. I believe you.”
“You mean you feel how my obsession—poor
old thing—may correspond to some possible
reality?”
“To some possible reality.”
“Then you will watch with me?”
She hesitated, then for the third time put her question.
“Are you afraid?”
“Did I tell you I was—at Naples?”
“No, you said nothing about it.”
“Then I don’t know. And I should
like to know,” said John Marcher. “You’ll
tell me yourself whether you think so. If you’ll
watch with me you’ll see.”
“Very good then.” They had been
moving by this time across the room, and at the door,
before passing out, they paused as for the full wind-up
of their understanding. “I’ll watch
with you,” said May Bartram.
The fact that she “knew”—knew
and yet neither chaffed him nor betrayed him—had
in a short time begun to constitute between them a
goodly bond, which became more marked when, within
the year that followed their afternoon at Weatherend,
the opportunities for meeting multiplied. The
event that thus promoted these occasions was the death
of the ancient lady her great-aunt, under whose wing,
since losing her mother, she had to such an extent
found shelter, and who, though but the widowed mother
of the new successor to the property, had succeeded—thanks
to a high tone and a high temper—in not
forfeiting the supreme position at the great house.
The deposition of this personage arrived but with
her death, which, followed by many changes, made in
particular a difference for the young woman in whom
Marcher’s expert attention had recognised from
the first a dependent with a pride that might ache
though it didn’t bristle. Nothing for
a long time had made him easier than the thought that
the aching must have been much soothed by Miss Bartram’s
now finding herself able to set up a small home in
London. She had acquired property, to an amount
that made that luxury just possible, under her aunt’s
extremely complicated will, and when the whole matter
began to be straightened out, which indeed took time,
she let him know that the happy issue was at last
in view. He had seen her again before that day,
both because she had more than once accompanied the
ancient lady to town and because he had paid another
visit to the friends who so conveniently made of Weatherend
one of the charms of their own hospitality. These
