“Not good enough! Don’t mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness.”
After a minute or two he gently disengaged her hands from her face, and laid her arms as they had once before been placed to protect him from the rioters.
“Do you remember, love?” he murmured. “And how I requited you with my insolence the next day?”
“I remember how wrongly I spoke to you,—that is all.”
“Look here! Lift up your head. I have something to show you!” She slowly faced him, glowing with beautiful shame.
“Do you know these roses?” he said, drawing out his pocket-book, in which were treasured up some dead flowers.
“No!” she replied, with innocent curiosity. “Did I give them to you?”
“No! Vanity; you did not. You may have worn sister roses very probably.”
She looked at them, wondering for a minute, then she smiled a little as she said—
“They are from Helstone, are they not? I know the deep indentations round the leaves. Oh! have you been there? When were you there?”