I
should think ten rooms would be quite enough. And it would be nice to
have a corner house, would it not?"
"If the question were only of our agreement, there would probably not
be much difficulty," I said, in a tone which I tried to make merely
courteous, but which may have revealed something more than courtesy
beneath it.
In coming down-stairs she gathered her dress in her right hand and put
her left in my arm; and then, in a flash, the picture came before me of
the last time we had gone arm-in-arm together down-stairs. It was at
her father's house, and she was speaking to me of that unlucky Mrs.
Murray; we had our quarrel that evening in the drawing-room, and it was
never made up. From then till now, what a gulf! and yet those years
would have been but a bridge to pass over, save for the one barrier
that was insurmountable between us.
"What has become of that Mrs. Murray whom you used to know?" she asked,
as we reached the foot of the stairs. She relinquished my arm as she
spoke, and faced me.
I felt the blood come to my face. "Mrs. Murray was in my thoughts at
the same moment--and perhaps by the same train of associations.
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