Then she stood still and looked toward the place of disturbance. A moment afterward Roland Tresham was at her side. He took her hand; he said softly, “This way, darling!” and before she could make the slightest resistance he had drawn her into a little glade shut in by large boulders and lofty trees. Then he had his arms around her, and was laughing and talking a thousand sweet, unreasonable things.
“Oh, Mr. Tresham, let me go! Let me go!” cried Denas.
“Not while you say ‘Mr. Tresham.’”
“Oh, Roland!”
“Yes, love, Roland. Say it a thousand times. Did you think I had forgotten you?”
“You were very cruel.”
“Cruel to be kind, Denas. My love! they think I am in London. Everyone thinks so. I did go to London last Wednesday. I left London this morning very early. I got off the train at St. Claire and walked across the cliff, and found out this pretty hiding-place. And I am going to be here every Saturday night––every Saturday night, wet or fine, and if you do not come here to see me, I will go to Australia and never see St. Penfer again.”
He would talk nothing but the most extravagant nonsense, and finally Denas believed him. He gave her a ring that looked very like Elizabeth’s betrothal ring, and was even larger than Elizabeth’s, and he told her to wear it in her breast until she could wear it on her hand. And for this night, and for many other Saturday nights, he never named the plot in his shallow head and selfish heart; he devoted himself to winning completely the girl’s absorbing love––not a very difficult thing to do, for the air of romance and mystery, at once so charming and so dangerous, enthralled her fancy; his eager, masterful, caressing wooing made her tremble with a delicious fear and hope; and in the week’s silence and dreaming, the folly of every meeting grew marvellously.
Nor was the loving, ignorant girl unaffected by 58 the apparently rich gifts her lover brought her––brooch and locket and bracelet, many bright and sparkling ornaments, which poor Denas hid away with joy and almost childish delight and prideful expectations. And if her conscience troubled her, she assured it that “if it was right for Elizabeth to receive such offerings of affection, it could not be wrong for her to do likewise.”