Something like "Good-bye" was whispered. I looked up in that face, once
so ingenuous, so happy. The laughing eyes were clouded with melancholy;
the saucy curled lip pale and compressed; the tall, graceful form
trembling with emotion. Not one word could I utter. My fingers closed
upon his shaking hand for an instant. I withdrew them. He had pressed
them so tightly in his nervous agony, that the indentation of a little
ring I wore drew blood.
"Poor child! poor child!" said Sir Adrian, very kindly--a sudden thought
about me causing him to stop and look fixedly at my sad countenance; "I
pity you, too, from my heart. Amabel, this has been a sad business; it
has moved me more than I like to own."