Through their open window came the clear, ringing notes of the thrush in the ash-tree, along with that curious scent of honeysuckle mixed with pigs’ dung which was their familiar atmosphere. She, too, heard the thrush, and, balancing the broom against a chair, walked to the window and leaned against the side of it, her profile toward him.

“What would I feel,” he said to himself, “if she started whistling her blackbird-song now?”

But Gerda displayed no desire for whistling. Her face looked pale and a little sad; and leaning there, with her forehead resting upon one of her bare arms as it lay along the woodwork of the window, she seemed to be lost in concentrated thought.

Wolf felt a sudden longing to go across to her and comfort her⁠—comfort her about those errant feelings of his own that it was impossible to believe she had intercepted in their secret passage through his brain! He couldn’t, surely, at that moment, announce to her Darnley’s plan?