Arthur drew nearer to his cousin, and put his arm around her waist. To his surprise again, she pushed his arm gently aside.
"Not now, dear Arthur!" she said, in a soft, clear voice, lifting her blue eyes to his face; "I want you to tell me all about it."
"About what?" said Arthur, somewhat taken aback at the result of his impulsive frankness.
"Your love for Margaret Grey," she said gently, but not without a faint tremor in her voice.
"Did I say I loved her, Adèle?" It was Arthur's turn to speak with a trembling voice and flushed face, but these told his tale only too eloquently.
"Not in so many words," replied Adèle; "but, dear, you have revealed your secret, and I am glad. It was like yourself, Arthur—frank and true. I might have guessed it before, for she is beautiful as a dream, like the lady Una; and I can imagine so well how a man's heart would go out to that kind of sadness and helplessness. I wish I had been a man;" Adèle sighed as she spoke; "but, perhaps, as a woman I shall be able to help you more. Strange—isn't it?—I was thinking of her, her face haunted me so, and longing to find out more about her—all for her own sake; now I will do it for yours."
The words were spoken very quietly and with a certain determination, that Arthur found it very difficult to understand.
"But, Adèle," he stammered out, "you forget—"
"That you and I are betrothed in a kind of way—is that what you mean? Thank you for thinking of it; but I should be grieved for that to stand in your way." She smiled a rather watery smile. "I promised not to be like Vivien, so, rather than make a prison of my spells, I shall cast them all to the winds." Then, more gravely, "We were too young, Arthur—I told my mother so—too young to know our own minds, as people say—at least you were." Here Adèle stopped suddenly; she was on the point of betraying the secret which—brave little maiden!—she thought she had preserved so well. But her calmness had reassured Arthur.
"You are right, Adèle," he answered gravely—and for the moment, with the unreasoning impulse of womanhood, she hated him for his quick acquiescence—"we were both too young; we had seen too little of the world; and even now I scarcely know how we ought to act. Our engagement has been announced; then my aunt—"