it I couldn't talk about
the things they asked me of."

"Why, whatever can you have to say of so much importance?" stammered
Eve, trying to speak as if she was unconscious of the subject he was
about to broach; and this from no coquetry, but because of an
embarrassment so allied to that which Adam felt that if he could have
looked into her heart he would have seen his answer in its tumultuous
beating.

"I think you know," said Adam softly; and as he spoke he stooped to
catch a glimpse of her averted face. "It's only what I'd on my lips to
say last night, only the door was opened before I'd time to get the
words out, and afterward you wouldn't so much as give me a look,
although," he added reproachfully, "you sat up ever so long after I was
gone, and only ran away when you thought that I was coming."

"No, indeed I didn't do that," said Eve earnestly: "that was Joan whom
you heard. I went up stairs almost the minute after you left."

"Is that really true?" exclaimed Adam, seizing both her hands and
holding them tight within his own. "Eve, you don't know what I suffered,
thinking you were caught by Jerrem's talk and didn't care whether I felt
hurt or pleased. I lay awake most of the night, thinking whether it
could ever be that you could care for me as by some magic you've made
me care for you. I fancied--"

But here a rustle in the hedge made them both start. Adam turned quickly
round, but nothing was to be discovered. "'Twas, most-like, nothing but
a stoat or a rabbit," he said, vexed at the interruption: "still, 'tis
all but certain there'll be somebody upon the road. Would you mind
crossing over to the cliff? 'Tis only a little bit down the other side."

Eve raised no objection, and, turning, they picked their way along the
field, got over the gate and down through the tangle of gorse and brier
to the path which ran along the Lansallos side of the cliff. Every step
of the way was familiar to Adam, and he so guided Eve as to bring her
down to a rough bit of rock which projected out and formed a seat on a
little flat of ground overhanging a deep gully.

"There!" he said, in a tone of satisfaction, "this isn't so bad, is it?
You won't feel cold here, shall you?"

"No, not a bit," said Eve.

Then there was a pause, which Eve broke by first giving a nervous,
half-suppressed sigh, and then saying, "It's very dark to-night, isn't
it?"

"Yes," said Adam, who had been thinking how he should best begin his
subject.