agreed to obey him. Mr Goodchum offered to accompany me,
but Harold stepped forward saying he would go, in such a resolute tragic
manner that Goodchum winked audaciously, saying waggishly, "Behold, the
hero descends into the burning mine!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ah, For One Hour of Burning Love,
'tis Worth an Age of Cold Respect!

We walked in perfect silence, Harold not offering to carry my little
basket. I did not dare lift my eyes, as something told me the face of the
big man would not be pleasant to look upon just then. I twirled the ring
he had given me round and round my finger. I occasionally put it on,
wearing the stones on the palm-side of my finger, so that it would not he
taken for other than one of two or three aunt Helen had lent me, saying I
was at liberty to use them while at Caddagat, if it gave me any pleasure.

The Caddagat orchard contained six acres, and being a narrow enclosure,
and the cherries growing at the extreme end from the house, it took us
some time to reach them. I led the way to our destination--a secluded nook
where grape-vines clambered up fig-trees, and where the top of gooseberry
bushes met the lower limbs of cherry-trees. Blue and yellow lupins stood
knee-high, and strawberries grew wild among them. We had not uttered a
sound, and I had not glanced at my companion. I stopped; he wheeled
abruptly and grasped my wrist in a manner which sent the basket whirling
from my hand. I looked up at his face, which was blazing with passion,
and dark with a darker tinge than Nature and the sun had given it, from
the shapely swelling neck, in its soft well-turned-down collar, to where
the stiff black hair, wet with perspiration, hung on the wide forehead.

"Unhand me, sir!" I said shortly, attempting to wrench myself free, but I
might as well have tried to pull away from a lion.

"Unhand me!" I repeated.

For answer he took a firmer hold, in one hand seizing my arm above the
elbow, and gripping my shoulder with the other so tightly that, through
my flimsy covering, his strong fingers bruised me so severely that in a
calmer moment I would have squirmed and cried out with pain.

"How dare you touch me!" He drew me so closely to him that, through his
thin shirt--the only garment on the upper part of his figure--I could
feel the heat of his body, and his big heart beating wildly.

At last! at last! I had waked this calm silent giant into life. After
many an ineffectual struggle I h