The two were silently but rapturously happy, and it was some little time before any thought of other people came to trouble Ralph. As for Evereld her heart seemed to beat to the rhythm of his words, “I love you!” and she was not at all disposed to consider the question which soon formed itself in his mind.
“I wonder whether I was wrong to speak,” he said. “You must remember darling that you are free, altogether free. After all, you have seen nothing of the world. You are not to let the thought of my love bind you.”
“Perhaps I ought not to make a promise while I am Sir Matthew’s ward,” said Evereld. “That is the only thing which would make me wish to wait; and now that we understand each other the waiting ought not to be too hard.”
“Suppose you tell Mrs. Hereford just the whole truth,” said Ralph, “and see what she advises. I shall feel happier about it if you have someone to turn to, and if she is what she seems to be one could trust her with anything. I wish I could talk to her some day.”
“Well that can easily be managed,” said Evereld. “I will tell her to-night. I am sure you are right about that. Though Sir Matthew is untrustworthy we can trust her, and as I am under her care here it seems right somehow that she should know.”
“She will certainly think me the most presumptuous fellow she ever met,” said Ralph. “Looking at it from an outsider’s point of view it is as bad as it can be. A fellow who is not quite one and twenty, and only earning three pounds a week! Mrs. Hereford will call me ‘The first of the Fortune Hunters,’ and will warn you against me.”
“We shall see,” said Evereld laughing. “I shall be very much disappointed in her if she doesn’t understand you better.”
“Are you sure that you understand me?” he said wistfully.
“Yes,” she said, her sweet eyes smiling into his. “I have summered and wintered you a great many times, as Bridget would say, and I very well know Ralph that you would much prefer it if my father had left me three hundred instead of three thousand a year. I think it is a little foolish of you, for as long as we share it what does it matter which side it comes from?”
A church clock striking four warned them that they must hasten back, and when they rejoined the others they were chatting together so naturally that no one dreamt what an important scene in their drama had been played at the other end of the beach.