He thought he guessed what she was thinking and feeling; he thought—­he was pretty sure—­she was thinking and feeling that her beloved Columbus had gone from her, and gone to a stranger, in a day, in a few hours, to a stranger she had never even seen, never even heard of; that her Columbus had had secrets from her, had been doing things behind her back; that she had had perfect faith and trust in her twin, and now was tasting the dreadful desolation of betrayal; and he also guessed that she must be sick with fears,—­for he knew how responsible she felt, how seriously she took the charge of her beautiful twin—­sick with fear about this unknown man, sick with the feeling of helplessness, of looking on while Columbus rushed into what might well be, for all any one knew, a deadly mess-up of her happiness.

Well, he could reason her out of most of this, he felt.  Certainly he could reassure her about Elliott, who did inspire one with confidence, who did seem, anyhow outwardly, a very fitting mate for Anna-Felicitas.  But he was aghast at the agony on her face.  All that he guessed she was thinking and feeling didn’t justify it.  It was unreasonable to suffer so violently on account of what was, after all, a natural happening.  But however unreasonable it was, she was suffering.

He took her by the arm.  “You come right along with me,” he said; and led her out of the yard, away from Li Koo and the kitchen window, towards the eucalyptus grove behind the house.  “You come right along with me,” he repeated, holding her firmly for she was very wobbly on her feet, “and we’ll tell each other all about the things we’re not minding.  Do you remember when the St. Luke left Liverpool?  You thought I thought you were minding things then, and were very angry with me.  We’ve made friends since, haven’t we, and we aren’t going to mind anything ever again except each other.”

But he hardly knew what he was saying, so great was his concern and distress.

Anna-Rose went blindly.  She stumbled along, helped by him, clutching the cat.  She couldn’t see out of her swollen eyes.  Her foot caught in a root, and the cat, who had for some minutes past been thoroughly uneasy, became panic-stricken and struggled out of her arms, and fled into the wood.  She tried to stop it, but it would go.  For some reason this broke down her self-control.  The warm cat clutched to her breast had at least been something living to hold on to.  Now the very cat had gone.  Her pride collapsed, and she tumbled against Mr. Twist’s arm and just sobbed.

If ever a man felt like a mother it was Mr. Twist at that moment.  He promptly sat her down on the grass.  “There now—­there, there now,” he said, whipping out his handkerchief and anxiously mopping up her face.  “This is what I did on the St. Luke—­do you remember?—­there now—­that time you told me about your mother—­it looks like being my permanent job—­there, there now—­don’t now—­you’ll have no little eyes left soon if you go on like this—­”