won't you?" She took his hand and held it for a moment. "That touch
of your hand means more to me than anything in the world." A cloud
came into her face which he saw and it pained him to see it. "Lady
Ascott wrote saying she intended to ask you to Thornton Grange, so I
wrote at once asking her if she could put me up; she guessed an
estrangement, and being a kind woman, was anxious to put it right."

"An estrangement, Owen? But there is no estrangement between us?"

"No estrangement?"

"Well, no, Owen, not what I should call an estrangement."

"But you sent me away, saying I shouldn't see you for three months.
Now three months have passed--haven't I been obedient?"

"Have three months passed?"

"Yes; It was in August you sent me away and now we are in November."

"Three months all but a fortnight."

"The last time I saw you was the day you went to Wimbledon to sing
for the nuns. They have captured you; you are still singing for
them."

"You mustn't say a word against the nuns," and she told anecdotes
about the convent which interested her, but which provoked him even
to saying under his breath, "Miserable folk!"