"Give me one kind word, then."
"What am I to say? Oh, do let me go!"
"Say, 'I like you, Norman.'"
"I like you, Norman," she said; and, taking up the peaches, she hastened away. Yet, with her flushed face and the glad light in her happy eyes, she did not dare to present herself at once before the duchess and Lady Peters.
Chapter XXI.
Was there some strange, magnetic attraction between Lord Arleigh and Madaline, or could it be that the valet, knowing or guessing the state of his master's affections, gave what he no doubt considered a timely hint? Something of the kind must have happened, for Madaline, unable to sleep, unable to rest, had risen in the early morning, while the dew was on the grass, and had gone out into the shade of the woods. The August sun shone brightly, a soft wind fanned her cheeks.
Madaline looked round before she entered the woods. The square turrets of Verdun Royal rose high above the trees. They were tall and massive, with great umbrageous boughs and massive rugged trunks, the boughs almost reaching down to the long, thick grass. A little brook went singing through the woods--a brook of clear, rippling water. Madaline sat down by the brook-side. Her head ached for want of sleep, her heart was stirred by a hundred varied emotions.
Did she love him? Why ask herself the question? She did love him--she trembled to think how much. It was that very love which made her hesitate. She hardly dared to think of him. In her great humility she overlooked entirely the fact of her own great personal loveliness, her rare grace and gifts. She could only wonder what there was in her that could attract him.
He was a descendant of one of the oldest families in England--he had a title, he was wealthy, clever, he had every great and good gift--yet he loved her; he stooped from his exalted position to love her, and she, for his own sake, wished to refuse his love. But she found it difficult.
She sat down by the brook-side, and, perhaps for the first time in her gentle life, a feeling of dissatisfaction rose within her; yet it was not so much that as a longing that she could be different from what she was--a wish that she had been nobly born, endowed with some great gift that would have brought her nearer to him. How happy she would have been then--how proud to love him--how glad to devote her sweet young life to him! At present it was different; the most precious thing that she could give him--which was her love--would be most prejudicial to him. And just as that thought came to her, causing the blue eyes to fill with tears, she saw him standing before her.