"Because you wouldn't look at me."
"I did look when I could steal a glance at you. I wanted to look at you every minute and I was afraid, for I loved you from that very first time in the grove of Kamakura. I tried to keep away from you, and I couldn't. I was so unhappy and so moony and headless that the chief noticed it, and said I'd better take a rest for I was ill. He didn't know what was the matter, but I did."
"Oh, dear," sighed Nan, "and I was unhappy, too. I thought you liked Jack."
"And I thought you liked a miserable somebody whom I could have annihilated."
Talking on in the strain which so pleases lovers the world over, they neared the group waiting for them by the temple gate. "Please don't tell any one," said Nan hastily. "Mother must be the first to know."
"And I hope I may go to her myself that I may ask her for your precious self. Will she give you to me, Nan?"
"She will, when she knows that it is for my happiness."
"And you will be willing to go to a strange country with me? You will wait for me till I can feel I have something more than myself to offer?"
"I will wait years if need be, and——" She hesitated. The strange country away from all those she loved best did seem appalling, but she bravely went on, "Strange countries do not seem so distant as they used to be."
Seeing them approaching, the others started on their stony way. "It is a rough road," said Neal, "but for me it was the way to Paradise."