Isabel pondered for a moment. "I think I really must have loved you all the time, or else I could not have hated you so."
Paul laughed. Life had been so serious to him of late that it was delightful to hear a woman talk nonsense again.
"And will you go on loving me always?" he asked.
"I shan't be able to help it; when I once care for any one I am like a five-pound note on Sundays—there is no possibility of changing me."
"My dear one, how sweet you are!"
"How did you find out that I was the author?" asked Isabel, trying to tie a knot in Paul's watch-chain.
"I knew it at once; I also knew that you had written it to hurt me; and, what is more, that you had succeeded beyond your wildest expectations."
"Poor old Paul! Did it make you very angry?"
"Not angry; but I confess it hurt me more than I had believed I was capable of being hurt. But I soon forgot this in my fear of the secret's coming out as to who was the author, and my knowledge of how much the disclosure of this secret would hurt you."
"And then you decided to pretend that you had written it?"