Old people like him and me, I said, should
help the child out of her trouble. I must have startled him terribly: he
grew, at first, so white. Then he looked at me long and intently; and
by-and-by began to cross-examine me. We were canny Scots, both of us,
and fenced.
"You say it was a photograph you saw her with?"
"I did not say I saw her."
"You have heard her open an album?"
"I have heard her move books."
I have seen the time when I could have broken a lance with the best; but
I was growing old, and he finished by getting me into rather a
hobble--when he abruptly left me, a great flush sweeping over his face.
He came back by-and-by, and took me out into the garden. If he never had
been the real old Paul before--he was so now. He cut the pansies from my
best cap, and decorated Duncan's coat-of-arms--which had broken out
about the walls now-a-days--with them. But he might have cut the cap in
two for all I cared just then.
That night--I hoped he had not forgotten--I hoped he would come.
Presently I heard a quiet step which I knew to be his. Then I sat down
and listened again. Swish, swish--here she was at last. I had listened
too often to the soft rustle of her trailing gown to make any mistake
now. In my excitement--you see I was an old habitue at prying and
peering about the library by this time--I put one eye round the door, at
her very back. She had gone a few steps into the room--and now stood,
rooted to the spot, startled.
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