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Lily could hardly bear to listen to Posco going on about how he ought to have had faith in her, not when she had ridden the whole way here from Buckland convinced that he had come here to marry another lass. She let him continue, though; he would want to have it all out. There would be time for her own explanations later, if it came to that.
"Now, then," said Posco. "I have a proposal to make..." Lily’s breath caught in her throat; did he really mean…?
“Lily! Lily! Help! I think someone is after me!” Her head jerked unwillingly towards the sound, and she saw Gróin rushing towards her. Her spirit sank; No, go back to bed! she wanted to cry out. Let time backtrack five or ten seconds! No, Gróin, not now! She had not talked with Posco in months!
“What do you mean, someone is after you?” she asked, a trifle more harshly than she intended. He had interrupted them for this?
“Someone is after me!” he repeated breathlessly. “I heard footsteps in the hallway, so I went to have a look, and someone was running towards me!”
Lily glanced in the direction from which Gróin had come; she saw nothing but a dark and apparently empty hallway. “I don’t see anything… Are you sure it wasn’t just someone else going to their room? And why would someone be after you?” She refrained from saying what she really had in mind about him imagining things and simply going back to bed… like a child seeing ghosts. And truly, unless he had left something important out of his tale, why would anyone be chasing him? Nonsense, all of it. Now, that wasn't quite fair, Lily realized; she had been quite happy for a friend earlier in the evening. But Lily didn't feel like being fair, at least not in her mind. A pity that what she wanted and what she ought to do were so different!
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