"Oh, please! I am not accustomed to these compliments. I must take my cakes to the children. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Hugo, taking her hand, and keeping it in his own while he spoke. "I may wait for you here and go back with you to Strathleckie, may I not?"
"Oh, dear, no," said Kitty. "You'll catch cold."
Then she looked down at her imprisoned hand, and up into his face, sweetly smiling all the time, and, if they had not been within sight of the cottage windows, Hugo would have taken her in his arms and kissed her there and then.
"I never catch cold. I shall walk about here till you come back. You don't dislike my company, I hope?"
It was said vehemently, with a sudden kindling of his dark eyes.
"Oh, no," answered Kitty, feeling rather frightened, in spite of her previous professions of courage, though she did not quite know why. "I shall be very pleased. I must go now." And then she vanished hastily into the cottage.
Hugo waited for some time, little guessing the fact that she was protracting her visit as much as possible, and furtively peeping through the blinds now and then in order to see if he were gone. Kitty had had some experience of his present mood, and was not certain that she liked it. But his patience was greater than hers. She was forced to come out at last, and before she had gone two steps he was at her side.
"I thought you were never going to leave that wretched hole," he said.
"Don't call it a wretched hole. It is very clean and nice. I often think that I should like to live in a cottage like that."