His brain was full
of things which must not be said. He could think only of things which
it was not safe to utter; and his discomfiture increased as he saw Miss
Morison watching him with a half-veiled smile.
"By the way," she said at length, when the silence was becoming too
marked, "I fulfilled your request."
"My request?" he echoed, unable to remember that he had made any.
"Yes. Have you forgotten that you came to ask me"--
He put out his hand impulsively.
"Please don't!" he interrupted. "It is bad enough to remember what an
unmitigated idiot I was without the humiliation of thinking that you
remember it too."
"I remember," she responded, with a sparkle in her eye, "that you did
not seem to relish the mission on which you were sent. However, I
accepted the intention, and I have promised the men a continuance of
their stipends." Her face grew suddenly grave, and she added: "I can't
joke about it, though. I really did it because Cousin Anna would have
wished it."
They were silent now because they had come so near a solemn subject
that neither of them cared to speak. The thoughts of Maurice went back
to the day he had come to do the errand of Father Frontford, and his
cheek grew hot.
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