With that she wrenched herself free. "No, no!" she cried in a passion of protest. "It isn't so! It's not true! I have refused him. You know my story, Hal! You know how it is with me!
"I can never marry any man but one. I told him so, but he wouldn't believe it. And then he cried and I kissed him. You tell him that I can never marry him. Tell him everything."
Kneedrock's lip curled in a cynical half-smile.
"It's not my story to tell," was his retort. "I don't understand it. I never do understand love-stories. It's quite enough for me to go about alone without any love-story of my own and come suddenly upon broken-hearted people like yourselves."
Carleigh was deepest crimson. "You might spare Mrs. Darling at all events," he said haughtily.
Kneedrock glanced at him indifferently. "I'm not being rough with any one," he returned. "I haven't any faith in human nature, so stiles never give me shocks."
He paused a brief moment and looked over their heads at the gray sky. Neither of them spoke.
"I say," he added suddenly. "Do you know it's long past three? You'll both be jolly late for tea unless you make haste. I'm off." And he was gone.
"I wonder what will happen next," Nina hazarded as she watched Nibbetts disappear over the crest of the hill. Then she turned to Carleigh with a most enticing smile.
"Well, as we know one another pretty well now, perhaps you had better take me in your arms and kiss me very nicely once more, for it is quite possible we may never have another chance."