"How can I know," thought he, "how can I know?" and just as the second repetition passed his lips, he heard a soft step near him, and, looking up, saw the gentle Emma watering her flowers.
To gain her side was his first impulse. To obtain her confidence the second. Taking the heavy watering-pot from her hand, he poured its contents on the rose-bush she was tending, and then setting it down, said quietly:
"I have just made your sister very unhappy, Miss Cavanagh."
She started and her soft eyes showed the shadow of an alarm.
"I thought you were her friend," she said.
He drew her around the corner of the house towards the poplar trees. "Had I been only that," he avowed, "I might have spared her pain, but I am more than that, Miss Cavanagh, I am her lover."
The hesitating step at his side paused, and though no great change came into her face, she seemed to have received a shock.
"I can understand," said she, "that you hurt her."
"Is she so wedded to the past, then?" he cried. "Was there some one, is there some one whom she—she——"
He could not finish, but the candid-eyed girl beside him did not profess to misunderstand him. A pitiful smile crossed her lips, and she looked for a minute whiter than her sister had done, but she answered firmly: