Presently her
heart began again to bear witness in violent piston-strokes.
"Is it really you, my child?" said Godfrey, in an uncertain
voice--for, if it was indeed she, why did she not speak, and why
did she look so scared at the sight of him?
"O Cousin Godfrey!" gasped Letty, then first finding a little
voice, "you gave me such a start!"
"Why should you be so startled at seeing me, Letty?" he returned.
"Am I such a monster of the darkness, then?"
"You came all at once," replied Letty, gathering courage from the
playfulness of his tone, "and blocked up the door with your
shoulders, so that not a ray of light fell on your face; and how
was I to know it was you, Cousin Godfrey?"
From a paleness grayer than death, her face was now red as fire;
it was the burning of the lie inside her. She felt all a lie now:
there was the good that Tom had brought her! But the gloom was
friendly. With a resolution new to herself, she went up to
Godfrey and said:
"If you are going to the town, let me walk with you, Cousin
Godfrey. It is getting so dark."
She felt as if an evil necessity--a thing in which man must not
believe--were driving her. But the poor child was not half so
deceitful inside as the words seemed to her issuing from her
lips. It was such a relief to be assured Godfrey had not seen
Tom, that she felt as if she could forego the sight of Tom for
evermore.
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