"Maggie," he said in a low voice. "If we go alone to Little Harben
does it mean that you think--you can begin to love me?"
She turned her eyes away. "I don't know. I don't know about myself,
I only know that I want us to be happy and I want us to be close
together--as we were before we were married. It's all gone wrong
somehow; I'm sure it's my fault. It was just the same with my father
and my aunts. I couldn't say the things to them I wanted to, the
things I really felt, and so I lost them. I'm going to lose you in
the same way if I'm not careful."
He still looked at her strangely. At last, with a sigh, he turned
back to his desk.
"I'll speak to Grace," he said. That night the storm broke.
During supper Grace was very quiet. Maggie, watching her, knew that
Paul had spoken to her. Afterwards in the study the atmosphere was
electric. Grace read The Church Times, Paul the Standard, Maggie
Longfellow's Golden Legend, which she thought foolish.
Grace looked up. "So I understand, Maggie, that you don't want me to
come with you and Paul this summer?"
Maggie, her heart, in spite of herself, thumping in her breast,
faced a Grace transfigured by emotion.
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