“I did not ask him that question either, nor did he volunteer the information.”
“But from your own observation, what did you make of him?”
“An elderly gentleman, who seemed to be recently arrived in this neighborhood.”
“And that was all?”
Alma bowed.
“Some tourist come to the North for the summer months, and rambling over these hills in search of the picturesque,” concluded Norham, in a tone of complete satisfaction.
Alma dropped her head, blushed deeply, and burst into tears of shame.
She had not spoken one word of falsehood, and yet her truthful replies had been so carefully worded as to deceive her lover, and Alma could not endure the thought of deception.
Norham Montrose mistook the cause of her emotion, and quick to repent as he had been to offend, he looked at her sweet suffering face for a moment, then approached, and dropped gently on his knee before her, and taking her hand, murmured:
“Dear Alma, I cannot bend too low to sue for your forgiveness; I have wronged and offended you by my mad jealousy. I have been unjust, unmanly. I am deeply grieved and mortified to think of it now. Alma, will you pardon me?”