"Oh, don't tell me about them, don't tell me about them," Pauline murmured in a low hurried voice. She felt that if Guy said another word she would run from him in a wild terror that would never let her rest, that would urge her out over the down's edge in desperate descent.
"I don't want to tell you about them," said Guy. "But, they've stood so at the back of my thoughts whenever I have been with you; and yesterday at Miss Verney's, I had a sense of guilt as if I were responsible in some way for her unhappiness. I had to tell you, Pauline."
She sat silent under the song of the larks that in streams of melodious light poured through their wings.
"Why do you say nothing?" he asked.
"Oh, don't let's talk about it any more. Promise me never to talk about it. Oh, Guy, why 'of course'? Why 'of course'?"
"Of course?" he repeated.
"'Of course they meant nothing.' That seems so dreadful to me. Perhaps you won't understand."
"Dear Pauline, isn't that 'of course' the reason they torment me?" he said. "It isn't kind of you to assume anything else."
She forgave him in that instant; and before she knew what she had done had put her hand impulsively on his. To the Pauline who made that gesture he was no more the unapproachable lover but someone whom she had wounded involuntarily.
"My heart of hearts, my adored Pauline."