"Shall we move forward?" she asked, but did not stir a finger towards
the bridle lying on her horse's neck.
Another silence; and, impatiently:
"I cannot bear to have you go," she said; "we are perfectly contented
together--and I wish you to know all the thoughts I have touching on the
world and on people. I cannot tell them to my father, nor to Ruyven--and
Cecile is too young--"
"There is Sir George," I said.
"He! Why, I should never think of telling him of these thoughts that
please or trouble or torment me!" she said, in frank surprise. "He
neither cares for the things you care for nor thinks about them
at all."
"Perhaps he does. Ask him."
"I have. He smiles and says nothing. I am afraid to tax his courtesy
with babble of beast and bird and leaf and flower; and why one man is
rich and another poor; and whether it is right that men should hold
slaves; and why our Lord permits evil, having the power to end it for
all time. I should like to know all these things," she said, earnestly.
"But I do not know them, Dorothy."
"Still, you think about them, and so do I. Sir Lupus says you have
liberated your Greeks and sent them back. I want to know why. Then, too,
though neither you nor I can know our Lord's purpose in enduring the
evil that Satan plans, it is pleasant, I think, to ask each other."
"To think together," I said, sadly.
"Yes; that is it. Is it not a pleasure?"
"Yes, Dorothy."
"It does not matter that we fail to learn; it is the happiness in
knowing that the other also cares to know, the delight in seaching for
reason together. Cousin, I have so longed to say this to somebody; and
until you came I never believed it possible.... I wish we were brother
and sister! I wish you were Cecile, and I could be with you all day and
all night.... At night, half asleep, I think of wonderful things to talk
about, but I forget them by morning. Do you?"
"Yes, cousin."
"It is strange we are so alike!" she said, staring at me thoughtfully.