"Ah! don't wonder," he said impatiently. His eyes fell upon her for one moment, then wandered down the road, as he added strangely: "You do and say so many foolish things without a decent why or wherefore. They're the things for which you never forgive yourself! They're the things for which you never hope to be forgiven!"
The girl did not look at him, but her glance chased his down the road to the bend where the dogcart had vanished and would reappear. She, however, was the next to speak, for something had occurred to her that she very much desired to explain.
"You see, I didn't know you lived here. I had never heard of Mundham when we met in town; if I had I shouldn't have known it was yours. I never dreamt that I should meet you here. You understand, Lord Manister?"
"My dear Miss Luttrell," cried Manister earnestly, "anybody could see that!"
So Christina lost nothing by her little exhibition of anxiety to impress this point upon him; for his reply was a triumphant flourish of the opinion she desired him to hold, to show her that he had it already; and his anxiety in the matter was even more apparent than her own.
"Thank you, Lord Manister," said Christina, looking him full in the face. Then her glance dropped to his hand; and his fingers were entangled in his watch-chain; and in the knowledge that the greater awkwardness was on his side she raised her eyes confidently, and met the dogged stare of a young Briton about to make a clean breast of his misdeeds.
"Do you want to know why I didn't mention our having taken this place—that time in town?"
"That depends on whether you want to tell me."
"I must tell you. It was because I feared—I mean to say, it crossed my mind—that perhaps you mightn't care to come here if you knew."
He paused and watched her. She was looking down, with her chin half buried in the focusing cloth, which had slipped from her head and fallen round her shoulders. The coolness of her face against the black velvet exasperated him, and the more so because he felt himself flushing as he added, "I see I was a fool to fear that."