A strange love-making, indeed! The girl gave a little sob. Yes, actually, a little sob. But she let him hold her hand, just as she had let him hold it, that day before. She had put her budding love aside, and outlived it bravely; but there was a pang in this, nevertheless, and she could not help but feel it. It would be over in a moment, but it stung sharply, for the instant.
“Yes, Hector, I see,” she answered, almost directly. “You are asking me if I will marry you.”
“Yes, my dear.” And he kissed her hand again.
Then there was a silence, for a little while; and he waited, wondering and feeling, God knows what strange hope, or fear, at heart. At length, however, another fair, small hand was laid softly on his, causing him to glance up, questioningly.
“Is that the answer?” he ventured, with a new throb of the heart.
But she shook her head, smiling a sweet, half-sad smile.
“It is not that answer,” she said, “but it is an answer in its way. It means that I am going to speak to you, from my heart.”
“I think you always do that,” he said, unsteadily.
“Yes, always; but now, more than ever, I must be very true to you, indeed, to-day, because—because you have made a mistake, Hector.”
“A mistake! Then it is not the first.”