"Then came the news of my uncle's sudden death; but when I had got over my grief for him—he had been good to me, and I was fond of him!—even then I could find no pleasure in the inheritance which had fallen to me. Of what use was the title and the rest of it, if all my happiness was set upon the girl I had lost forever? I came home to do my duty, in a dull, dogged fashion, came home with the conviction that I should not be able to rest in England, that I should have to take to wandering again. I loved you still, Nell, but I hoped—see, now, I tell you the truth!—that I might at least get some peace, might learn to deaden my heart. And then, as the Fates would have it, I find you here, and——"
He paused for a moment and caught his breath.
"Hear that you were going to marry another man."
Nell started slightly, and the color rose to her face. She had forgotten Falconer!
"That was the last drop in my cup of misery. Somehow, I had always thought of you as the little girl of Shorne Mills, as—as—free. I had not reflected that it was inevitable that some other man should admire and love you. You see, you—you still, in some strange way, seemed to belong to me, though I knew I had lost you!"
No words he could have uttered could have touched her more sharply and deeply than this simple avowal. She turned her head aside so that he might not see the quivering of her lips, the tenderness which sprang into her eyes.
"That was the hardest blow of all that Fate had dealt me, Nell. It almost drove me mad to know that you once loved me, and yet that you were to be the wife of another man! It made me mad and desperate for a time, then I had to face it, as I had faced my loss of you. But, Nell——"
He paused again, and ventured to draw a little nearer to her; but as she still shrank from him, and leaned against the tree, he stopped short and did not venture to take her hand.
"Now I have just left Mr. Falconer, I have heard from his own lips that there is no engagement, that——Oh, Nell! It was the knowledge that you were still free that sent me to you just now, that made me cry out to you as I did! I love you, Nell, more dearly, more truly, if that be possible, than I did! Won't you forgive me the folly which made you send me away from you? Won't you let me try and win back your love?"
There was silence, broken only by the rustle of the leaves in the summer breeze, by the note of a linnet singing in the branches above their heads.