"
He glanced back at her with a smile as she bent above her
task like a school-girl struggling with a "composition." Her
flushed cheek and frowning brow showed that her difficulty
was genuine and not an artless device to draw him to her
side. She was really powerless to put her thoughts in
writing, and the inability seemed characteristic of her
quick impressionable mind, and of the incessant come-and-go
of her sensations. He thought of Anna Leath's letters, or
rather of the few he had received, years ago, from the girl
who had been Anna Summers. He saw the slender firm strokes
of the pen, recalled the clear structure of the phrases,
and, by an abrupt association of ideas, remembered that, at
that very hour, just such a document might be awaiting him
at the hotel.
What if it were there, indeed, and had brought him a
complete explanation of her telegram? The revulsion of
feeling produced by this thought made him look at the girl
with sudden impatience. She struck him as positively
stupid, and he wondered how he could have wasted half his
day with her, when all the while Mrs. Leath's letter might
be lying on his table. At that moment, if he could have
chosen, he would have left his companion on the spot; but he
had her on his hands, and must accept the consequences.
Some odd intuition seemed to make her conscious of his
change of mood, for she sprang from her seat, crumpling the
letter in her hand.
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