"I do believe you, of course," he answered in a low voice. "And now," he continued in the same low tone, urged to speak by an irresistible impulse, "perhaps you can guess why i have stayed away? How, from a sense of mistaken loyalty, my lips have been locked?"
Her eyes, which up to this, had been fixed intently on his, now sank. Suddenly a suspicion of the truth now dawned upon her mind, and she turned aside her face.
"Miss Denis," he said, "I see you have guessed my secret—I love you."
These three magic words were almost inaudible; barely louder than the orange leaves which whispered in the scented air. Nevertheless a busy little zephyr caught them up, carried them away, and murmured them to the sleepy flowers and the drowsy waves, that washed the invulnerable rocks beneath them.
Helen made no reply. This was the first love-tale to which she had ever listened, and those three syllables stirred every fibre of her heart.
"Do you remember that time on the wreck," he continued, "when you told me that I was leading a lazy, useless life, and that I ought to go back to the outer world? You little guessed that it was you, yourself, who were keeping me a prisoner here!"
Still the young lady said nothing, but kept her face steadily turned towards the sea.
He waited a moment, as if expecting some reply, but none came. At last he said, in quite a different tone,—
"I see how it is.—I have been a presumptuous idiot! And, after all, I had no right to expect that you would care a straw about me. I am years older than you are; I am—"
"Mr. Lisle," she interrupted, turning towards him at last, and speaking with apparent effort, "you are quite wrong.—I—I——" she stopped, and a little half-frightened smile played round her mouth, as she added, almost under her breath, "But what will papa say?"