"I have startled you," says Beauclerk, still disbelieving, yet somehow loosening the clasp on her hand. "You did not expect, perhaps, that I should have spoken to-day, and yet——"
"No. It was not that," says Miss Kavanagh, slowly. "I knew you would speak—I thought last night would have been the time, but I managed to avoid it then, and now——"
"Well?"
"I thought it better to get it over," says she, gently. She stops as if struck by something, and heavy tears rush to her eyes. Ah! she had told another very much the same as that. But she had not meant it then—and yet had been believed—and now, when she does mean it, she is not believed. Oh! if the cases might be reversed!
Beauclerk, however, mistakes the cause of the tears.
"It—get what over?" demands he, smiling.
"This misunderstanding."
"Ah, yes—that! I am afraid,"—he leans more closely toward her,—"I have often been afraid that you have not quite read me as I ought to be read."
"Oh, I have read you," says she, with a little gesture of her head, half confused, half mournful.
"But not rightly, perhaps. There have been moments when I fear you may have misjudged me——"