She made a small, impulsive movement of protest. "I didn't—quite—trust you," she said.
"But you knew I loved you!" he said.
She shook her head again with vehemence. "I didn't know—I didn't know! How could I? Why, you have never told me so—even now."
"Great heavens!" he said, as if aghast.
Very oddly his unexpected discomfiture restored her confidence. She faced him again. "It doesn't matter now," she said. "You needn't begin at this stage. I've found out for myself—as you might have done long ago if you hadn't been quite blind. But I'm rather glad, after all, that you didn't, because—you learnt to trust me without. It was dear of you to trust me, Burke. I don't know how you managed it."
"I would trust you to the world's end—blindfold," he said. "I know you."
"Yes, now. But you didn't then. When you found me in the hut—with Guy," her voice quivered a little—"you didn't know—then—that I was with him because he was too ill to be there alone."
"And to protect him from me," Burke said.
"Yes; that too." She laid her cheek suddenly against his hand.
"Forgive me for that!" she said.
He drew her head back to his shoulder. "No—you had reason enough for fearing me," he said. "God alone knows what brought you back to me."