Since Reggie is coming back to us, won't you stay?"
Deleah lifted her head, and regarded him in silent astonishment.
He went on. "You have not forgotten what I said to you on a certain matter
some months ago, although you have sweetly held yourself as if you did not
remember. I now wish to recall the words I said then."
He waited. It was difficult to carry on a conversation in which she would
take no part.
"I see that I was wrong. That which I feared might be for Reggie's
undoing, I now believe would be for his good. Will you do me the great
kindness to forget that former talk we had; or if you cannot forget, to
act as though it had not taken place?"
Their walk had brought them opposite the morning-room window at which Miss
Forcus was now standing looking out, wondering what Francis had found to
say to the girl to whom he so seldom spoke.
Deleah with an effort found her voice. "That time--when you spoke to me
about your brother--I had not promised to marry him."
"I know," he said very gently, for her voice showed him that she was
distressed. "But Reggie wished it very much. And, perhaps, but for my
having taken action, you would have done?"
"I don't know," Deleah said, her head hung over the flowers in her hands.
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