"I surely do mean it, and have tried to make you see and know it, for weeks past, but your answer now is only what I had expected, for though I at first thought your indifference feigned, I soon came to see that neither I, nor any other man had ever received a thought from you, and to fear that I never would. You seemed wedded to your love of art, but now, when you know that I love you, cannot you find a little feeling somewhere in your heart for me, Olive?"
"No, I cannot," answered Olive, after a moment, and with the air of one who had been literally hunting for something, and failed to find it. "I could not help but think a great deal of you, when you made my visit so pleasant, and then was so kind when trouble came; but I never dreamed that you loved me; I really think you must be mistaken, it seems so strange. Why do you?"
There was no misunderstanding the honest wonder in her eyes, as she asked the question, and no possibility of construing it into a desire for flattery.
"I have loved you," he said, "ever since that first sad night, so long ago, when you showed a womanly strength—"
"What night?" she asked eagerly, the old vague remembrance coming back to her; and, at the interruption, he looked at her in amaze.
"Is it possible you do not remember?" he asked.
"No, I do not; but the moment I saw you, there seemed a remembrance that has worried me ever since. What is it?"
For a moment he hesitated to tell her.
"It was I, who brought your father home," he said, at last; and with a swift, painful recollection, she dropped her face into her hands, and said nothing.
"When you came to the Hall," he went on presently, "and was introduced to me, there was such an air of surprise, together with a look of pain in your face, that I immediately supposed you remembered me, and that the memory was painful, so I never spoke of it. I was travelling here in New York, and was on the train just a few seats behind your father. I saw him when he received the blow on the temple, and went to him as soon as possible, and was the one asked to see him brought safely to his home. I did not know, until my return home, two weeks later, that it was Uncle Ridley's nephew."