t quite do
for either of us."

"Why not?" I cried in an ecstasy. "My darling, it will do for me! It
is more than I dared to hope for; thank God, thank God, that you should
care for me at all!"

She shook her head.

"You do not understand," she whispered.

"I do. I do. You do not love me as you want to love."

"As I could love--"

"And as you will! It will come. It will come. I'll bother you no more
about it now. God knows I can afford to leave well alone! I am only too
happy--too thankful--as it is!"

And indeed I rose to my feet every whit as joyful as though she had
accepted me on the spot. At least she had not rejected me; nay, she
confessed to loving me in a way. What more could a lover want? Yet there
was a dejection in her drooping attitude which disconcerted me in the
hour of my reward. And her eyes followed me with a kind of stony remorse
which struck a chill to my bleeding heart.

I went to the door; the hall was still empty, and I shut it again with a
shudder at what I saw before the hearth, at all that I had forgotten
in the little library. As I turned, another door opened--the door made
invisible by the multitude of books around and upon it--and young Squire
Rattray stood between my love and me.

His clear, smooth skin was almost as pale as Eva's own, but pale brown,
the tint of rich ivory. His eyes were preternaturally bright. And they
never glanced my way, but flew straight to Eva, and rested on her very
humbly and sadly, as her two hands gripped the arms of the chair, and
she leant forward in horror and alarm.

"How could you come back?" she cried. "I was told you had escaped!"

"Yes, I got away on one of their horses."

"I pictured you safe on board!"

"I very nearly was."

"Then why are you here?"

"To get your forgiveness before I go."

He took a step forward; her eyes and mine were riveted upon him; and I
still wonder which of us admired him the more, as he stood there in his
pride and his humility, gallant and young, and yet shamefaced and sad.

"You risk your life--for my forgiveness?" whispered Eva at last. "Risk
it? I'll give myself up if you'll take back some of the things you said
to me--last night--and before."

There was a short pause.

"Well, you are not a coward, at all events!"

"Nor a murderer, Eva!"

"God forbid."

"Then forgive me for everything else that I have been--to you!"

And he was on his knees where I had knelt scarce a minute before; nor
could I b