“I’m afraid the monument’s rather … rather awful. … Do you like the flowers, Laurie?”
She was noticing that the chrysanthemums were a little blackened by the frost; and hardly attended to the fact that he did not answer.
“Do you like the flowers?” she said again presently.
He started from his prolonged stare downwards.
“Oh yes, yes,” he said; “they’re … they’re lovely. … Maggie, the grave’s all right, isn’t it: the mound, I mean?”
At first she hardly understood.
“Oh yes … what do you mean?”
He sighed, whether in relief or not she did not know.
“Only … only I have heard of mounds sinking sometimes, or cracking at the sides. But this one—”
“Oh yes,” interrupted the girl. “But this was very bad yesterday. … What’s the matter, Laurie?”
He had turned his face with some suddenness, and there was in it a look of such terror that she herself was frightened.
“What were you saying, Maggie?”
“It was nothing of any importance,” said the girl hurriedly. “It wasn’t in the least disfigured, if that—”