A fiery maple branch fell between them, and he impatiently thrust it aside.
“When you treat me like this you raise the devil in me,” he said angrily. “As I told you before, Betty, when I'm not Lightfoot I'm Montjoy—it may be this that makes you plague me so.”
“O Dan, Dan!” she laughed, but in a moment added gravely: “When you're neither Lightfoot nor Montjoy, you're just yourself, and it's then, after all, that I like you best. Shall we turn now?” She wheeled her horse about on the rustling leaves, and they started toward the sunset light shining far up the road.
“When you like me best,” said Dan, passionately. “Betty, when is that?” His ardent look was on her face, and she, defying her fears, met it with her beaming eyes. “When you're just yourself, Dan,” she answered and galloped on. Her lips were smiling, but there was a prayer in her heart, for it cried, “Dear God, let him love me, let him love me.”
VIII. — BETTY'S UNBELIEF
“Dear God, let him love me,” she prayed again in the cool twilight of her chamber. Before the open window she put her hands to her burning cheeks and felt the wind trickle between her quivering fingers. Her heart fluttered like a bird and her blood went in little tremours through her veins. For a single instant she seemed to feel the passage of the earth through space. “Oh, let him love me! let him love me!” she cried upon her knees.
When Virginia came in she rose and turned to her with the brightness of tears on her lashes.
“Do you want me to help you, dear?” she asked, gently.