Helena had read it dry-eyed. But for several
hours afterwards, on an evening of tempest, she had vanished out of ken,
on the mountainside; coming back as night fell, her hair and clothes,
dripping with rain, her cheeks glowing from her battle with the storm,
her eyes strangely bright.
Her answers to her guardian's letters had been, to Lucy's way of
thinking, rather cruelly brief; at least after the first letter written
in her own room, and posted by herself. Thenceforward, only a few
post-cards, laid with Lucy's letters, for her or any one else to read, if
they chose. And meanwhile Lucy was tolerably sure that she was slowly but
resolutely making her own plans for the months ahead.
The little diary contained also the entry of Geoffrey French's visit--a
long week-end, during which as far as Lucy could remember, Helena and he
had never ceased "chaffing" from morning till night, and Helena had
certainly never given him any opportunity for love-making. She, Lucy, had
had a few short moments alone with him, moments in which his gaiety had
dropped from him, like a ragged cloak, and a despondent word or two had
given her a glimpse of the lover he was not permitted to be, beneath the
role of friend he was tired of playing.
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