"No, child," he said firmly drawing her back again beside him, "you must rest a minute yet before taking that long walk. You are weary and excited, and besides it will do you good to tell me. What made you run off up here? Are you homesick?"
He scanned her face anxiously. He began to fear with sudden compunction that the sacrifice he had accepted so easily had been too much for the victim, and it suddenly began to be a great comfort to him to have Marcia with him, to help him hide his sorrow from the world. He did not know before that he cared.
"I was frightened," she said, with drooping lashes. She was trying to keep her lips and fingers from trembling, for she feared greatly to tell him all. But though the woods were growing dusky he saw the fluttering little fingers and gathered them firmly in his own.
"Now, child," he said in that tone that even his aunts obeyed, "tell me all. What frightened you, and why did you come up here away from everybody instead of calling for help?"
Brought to bay she lifted her beautiful eyes to his face and told him briefly the story, beginning with the night when she had first met Harry Temple. She said as little about music as possible, because she feared that the mention of the piano might be painful to David, but she made the whole matter quite plain in a few words, so that David could readily fill in between the lines.
"Scoundrel!" he murmured clenching his fists, "he ought to be strung up!" Then quite gently again, "Poor child! How frightened you must have been! You did right to run away, but it was a dangerous thing to run out here! Why, he might have followed you!"
"Oh!" said Marcia, turning pale, "I never thought of that. I only wanted to get away from everybody. It seemed so dreadful I did not want anybody to know. I did not want you to know. I wanted to run away and hide, and never come back!" She covered her face with her hands and shuddered. David thought the tears were coming back again.
"Child, child!" he said gently, "you must not talk that way. What would I do if you did that?" and he laid his hand softly upon the bowed head.
It was the first time that anything like a personal talk had passed between them, and Marcia felt a thrill of delight at his words. It was like heavenly comfort to her wounded spirit.