"I do not hate you, Lord Silverbridge."
"And is that all?"
"You asked me the question."
"But you do love me? By George, I thought you would be more honest and straightforward."
Then she dropped her badinage and answered him seriously. "I thought I had been honest and straightforward. When I found that you were in earnest at Killancodlem—"
"Why did you ever doubt me?"
"When I felt that you were in earnest, then I had to be in earnest too. And I thought so much about it that I lay awake nearly all that night. Shall I tell you what I thought?"
"Tell me something that I should like to hear."
"I will tell you the truth. 'Is it possible,' I said to myself, 'that such a man as that can want me to be his wife; he an Englishman, of the highest rank and the greatest wealth, and one that any girl in the world would love?'"
"Psha!" he exclaimed.