"So it seems," she said, with a pitiful attempt at a laugh. "I thought you were in Kamschatka, or Bombay--or anywhere!"
"I have come back," he returned, lamely, mechanically accompanying her as she rode out of shelter--she would not, could not, stay there and bandy words with him! "I felt--I must know--the worst!"
Involuntarily she reined in, and so suddenly that she startled her steed, and it was some moments before the mare's nerves were calmed. Then she turned a white, set face upon her self-elected escort.
"What do you mean, Lord Vansittart?" she asked scornfully, and her eyes flashed.
"You--know," he hoarsely said. "I am not so utterly vain as to think that where I have failed, other and--and--more attractive fellows may not succeed!"
"You know, or ought to know, that what you are saying is absurd!" she faltered. What had she thought, feared? She hardly knew, she only felt a tremendous relief. Thank Heaven, even had she been secretly vowed to the cloister, her conduct since their parting could not have borne closer scrutiny! "You must remember--what I said--I never, never, intend to marry--anyone. I shall never, never, change my mind--about that!"
He said nothing; but glanced at her--a curious glance. A puzzle to him since he first had felt encouraged to believe from symptoms which only a watchful, anxious lover would perceive, that she involuntarily, perhaps even unconsciously, loved him--she had remained an insoluble problem during the long days of their separation when he pondered on the subject the slow, lagging hours through--and, now again, she bid fair to be as great a problem as ever. For he felt, he knew, that her reception of him--her pallor, the strange look in her eyes and the curious pitch of her voice--why, the veriest fool alive would not have mistaken her demeanour or one of its details for indifference!
"I--I think you mistake yourself," he began slowly, revolving certain ideas which he had jotted down at intervals for his future guidance, in his mind. "I suppose you do not believe in marriage. You have seen its failure! Is that it?"
"Perhaps," she said. "I really can't tell, myself. All I know is, that I am firmly resolved not to marry--any one!" She spoke doggedly, with almost a childish obstinacy.
"But--you do not bar friendship?" he said, earnestly, appealingly. "Supposing some one of the unfortunate men you determine to have nothing to do with were to wish to devote his whole life and energies to you, secretly, but entirely--with the absolute devotion of a would-be anchorite or martyr--what then? You would not refuse to give the poor devil a chance? I mean, to give him something in return; if friendship were too much to expect, tolerance, pity, a look now and then, or a word, you would allow him to play your faithful knight, of course in strict secrecy, from afar, unsuspected by the world?"