“’Twas from no liking for Mr. Waldron I came out,” said Joan, hastily. “He lured me hither by saying I should see something very interesting in the Italian garden; and I thought he had some rare flower or bird to show me. I should scarce have come, as you may guess, to see you in such interesting converse with Ann Price!”
In her voice, Tregenna was delighted to notice a tone of pique which seemed to be of good augury.
“There was naught of great import in my talk with her,” said he, quickly. He was trembling so much that his sword rattled at his side, and his voice was as hoarse as a raven’s. “But ’tis true I have something of great import to me on my mind, and I cannot but think, Miss Joan, you must know what it is!”
“Indeed, sir, I cannot guess your thoughts!” said Joan, though the heightened color in her cheeks belied her words.
“Can you not imagine what I feel—what I could not—dared not, say last night? Oh, you do, you must, I think! Sure a man cannot feel what I feel for you without its getting from his heart into his eyes! Don’t you know I love you, Joan?”
The change came about in the space of a second. When the last hurried words, husky, tremulous, half whispered, came bursting from his lips, Joan shivered, gave him one glance, and had betrayed herself before she was aware.
“You—you care for Ann!” she faltered between two long-drawn breaths.
“Pshaw! Not I! I care for Joan. I care for Joan, only Joan!”
And at the last word, as she hardly resisted him, he kissed her.
It was growing cold even in the sheltered garden, now that the late autumn sun was descending in the sky, and the wind was rising and sending the red leaves fluttering from the boughs of the trees to the earth. But they never heeded it: they would have gone on sitting on that terrace, and walking round and round those flower-beds, for an hour and more, had not Parson Langney’s voice presently startled them by calling—