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As I strolled round the garden in Nap's company I often saw Leah sitting sewing at her mistress's window: she would put down her work and watch me until I was out of sight. I felt the woman hated me, and this surveillance was very unpleasant to me. I never felt quite free until I reached the kitchen-garden. Mr. Hamilton visited his sister's room regularly three times a day.
I haven't finished yet. Boney, you you've got to listen. There's no quarrel between us. Only if you will be so damned headstrong, I must be headstrong too. I mean what I say. If you won't go to Arizona alone, you will go with me. And we'll start to-night." Nap's thin lips twitched, but with no impulse to ridicule.
"Nap," she said, standing still with her hands nervously clasped behind her, "please don't think me impertinent, or anything of that sort. But I can't help knowing that you are feeling pretty bad about it. And and" she began to falter "I know you are not a brute really. You didn't mean to do it." A curious little smile came into Nap's face. "It's good of you to make excuses for me," he observed.
And in that moment Nap's eyes opened wide and fixed themselves upon her. He did not attempt to move or speak, but the snarling look went wholly out of his face. The thin lips met and closed over the battered mouth. He lay regarding her intently, as if he were examining some curious thing he had never seen before. And before that gaze Anne's eyes wavered and sank.
Ere's a kid ain't eard where we been. Been!" the sudden thunder in his voice. "Why, in Boulong Arbour among Boney's craft. H'in and h'out, under Nap's nose. Stormed the Arbour Battery; set the gun-vessels afire; and came out under their guns, colours at the truck, and the bosun's boy in the mizzenchains singin O it's a snug little island, A right little tight little island."
She showed no agitation, and spoke of Nap's unexpected arrival as if she were quite indifferent to his comings and goings; but she hovered about Anne with a protecting motherliness that did not need to express itself in words. When they went downstairs she held Anne's arm very closely. But the ordeal that both were mutely dreading did not take place that night.
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