He picked it up, and thrust it in his pocket.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” he said, gratefully. She turned to go, with a slight inclination of her head, but he went on, speaking hurriedly and so earnestly, that she paused, her head half turned over her shoulder, her eyes cast down; an attitude so full of grace that it almost drove what he was going to say out of his head. “I don’t deserve that you should have brought it.”
“I don’t think you do,” she assented, a faint smile curving her lips at his ingenuousness.
“I daresay you think it strange that I didn’t ask you to send it to the Towers?” he went on. “You know you would not let me call at your place for it,” he added, apologetically.
“Why did you not let me send it?” she asked, with faint curiosity.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “Won’t you sit down and rest? It’s warm this morning, and you have walked far, perhaps.”
She hesitated a moment, then sat down, almost on the spot she had sat the preceding day, and Cecil Neville could not help a wild wish rushing to his heart that he was once again lying at her feet!
He sat down on the bank, as near to her as he dared, and leaned on his elbow toward her.
“You see, I’m only a visitor at the Towers. The marquis—that’s my uncle, you know——”
“I don’t know,” she said, with a faint smile, her eyes fixed dreamily on her book.