She hesitated, then said,

'My aunt wouldn't let me, sir.'

'Wouldn't let you answer it! and why?'

Again she hesitated--

'I--I don't know, sir.'

'You _do_ know, Winifred. I see that you know, and you shall tell me.
Why didn't your aunt let you answer my letter?'

Winifred's eyes looked into mine beseechingly. Then that light of
playful humour, which I remembered so well, shot like a sunbeam
across and through them as she replied--

'My aunt said we must both forget our pretty dream.'

Almost before the words were out, however, the sunbeam fled from her
eyes and was replaced by a look of terror. I now perceived that my
mother, in passing to the carriage, had lingered on the gravel-path
close to us, and had, of course, overheard the dialogue. She passed
on with a look of hate. I thought it wise to bid Winifred good-bye
and join my mother.

As I stepped into the carriage I turned round and saw that Winifred
was again looking wistfully at some particular part of me--looking
with exactly that simple, frank, 'objective' expression with which I
was familiar.