She sat quite silent, with drooped head.
“Can you not trust one that so loves you?” pleaded Humphrey, realising now that this little gentle maid was not, after all, to prove an easy conquest.
She lifted her head for a minute, and looked shyly, yet searchingly into his eyes. There was none of the fierce passion that had terrified her in Norton’s gaze, nor was there the quiet friendliness she had often seen in Gabriel’s hazel eyes; surely this was the love that would satisfy her! And yet—yet—the pity of it!—could she honestly say she loved him? All at once she hid her face and burst into tears.
“Helena!” he cried, in dismay, kneeling beside her, “what have I done? What have I said to grieve you?”
“Oh, I don’t know what to do!” she sobbed. “If my father were but here!”
He drew down one of her hands, and held it in his tenderly. “Tell me about him,” he said.
And Helena poured out all her pent-up grief, and did not draw away her hand when now and again he kissed it.
“Tell me,” said Humphrey, “had your father still been here, do you think he would have trusted you to me?”
“Yes,” said little Nell, with a sob. “Anyone would trust you. It was not you that I doubted.”
“What, then, my beloved?”