Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/348

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346
THE BOND

Crayven walked back and forth behind her, nervously smoking one cigarette after another. Teresa felt suddenly very tired, and her strained shoulder ached furiously. There was a long walk still before them. But she had quite got back her composure, and when she had finished the milk she was ready to start at once.

"Won't you rest half an hour? You must be tired," said Crayven, with pleading eyes.

"No, I'd rather go on." she answered indifferently.

They went silently along the winding path down the hot, stony hillside where grey herbs sent out a sharp fragrance, and into the depths of the pine-forest, dusky, cool, and sweet. Teresa, still pale and looking melancholy, walked ahead in the narrow path, but when it widened Crayven walked beside her. At last he said:

"Don't be too angry with me. … Did you hate so to have me touch you?"

"I'm not angry. … I don't know—don't talk about it," she said impatiently.

He uttered not a word after that. About them the sleepy, alluring silence of the forest stretched out, glade after glade, mossy, fresh, untrodden, with a light dreamy motion in its high crests, with a soft murmur in its distances.