It being nearly dark, no one came by until we heard his mother's step, and her cheerful “Where's my Colin?”—loud enough as if she meant—poor dear!—in fond precaution, to give us notice of her coming. Instinctively we hid from her in the library. She looked in at the door, but did not, or would not, see us, and went trotting away down the corridor. Oh, what a wretch I felt!
When she had departed, I was stealing away, but Colin caught my dress.
“One word—just one. Did you never care for me—never the least bit in all the world?”
“Yes,” I answered sorrowfully, feeling no more ashamed of telling this, or anything, than one would be in a dying confession. “Yes, Colin, I was once very fond of you, when I was about eleven years old.”
“And never afterwards?”
“No—as my saying this proves. Never afterwards, and never should, by any possible chance—in the sort of way you wish.”
“That is enough—I understand,” he said, with a sort of mournful dignity quite new in Colin Granton. “I was only good enough for you when you were a child, and we are not children now. We never shall be children any more.”
“No—ah, no.” And the thought of that old time came upon me like a flood—the winter games at the Cedars—the blackberrying and bilberrying upon the sunshiny summer moors—the grief when he went to school, and the joy when he came home again—the love that was so innocent, so painless. And he had loved me ever since—me, not Lisabel; though for a time he tried flirting with her, he owned, just to find out whether or not I cared for him. I hid my face and sobbed.
And then, I had need to recover self-control; it is such an awful thing to see a man weep.
I stood by Colin till we were both calmer: trusting all was safe over; and that without the one question I most dreaded. But it came.