As I sat nursing these melancholy thoughts I heard a footstep. I
did not look up--for I knew the footstep. I should have known it
if it had trodden over my grave.
"I take it you are not wanting company, you have come so far out of
the way of it," said Dugald Shaw.
Still I did not look up.
"Nobody seemed to want _me_," I remarked sulkily, after a pause.
He made no reply, but seated himself upon the rocks. For a little
there was silence.
"Virginia," he said abruptly, "I'm thinking you have hurt the lad."
"Oh," I burst out, "that is all you think of--the lad, the lad!
How about me? Don't you suppose it hurt me too?"
"No," he made deliberate answer. "I was not sure of that. I
thought maybe you liked having men at your feet."
"Liked it? Liked to wound Cuthbert--_Cuthbert_? Oh, if only it
had not happened, if we could have gone on being friends! It was
all my fault for going with him into the cave. It was after you
had buried the skeleton, and I wanted to see poor Peter's
resting-place. And we spoke of Helen, and it was all frightfully
melancholy and tender, and all at once he--he said it. And I meant
he never should!" In the soreness of my heart I began to weep.
"There, lassie, there, don't cry!" he said gently. "The boy didn't
speak of it, of course. But I knew how it must be. It has hit him
hard, I am afraid.
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