“Indeed?” said Mace, and speaking as if her thoughts were far away.
“Yes, indeed,” he cried; “and I am growing wise in gun-casting and powder-making. I am learning day by day; but above all, sweet Mace, I am learning how vain and hollow is the world to which I have belonged, and how happiness is not to be found there.”
“You are talking in riddles, Sir Mark,” replied Mace, dragging herself back as it were to listen to his words.
“Read my riddles, then,” he cried, in a low tone, as he laid his hand upon her arm, and arrested her by the meadow-path. “Mace, dearest, listen to me—but for a few moments. No, no; do not hasten—the evening is early yet, and where could be fitter place for what I would say than this sweetly-scented mead, where the soft evening breeze seems to whisper of that which fills my heart? Mace, dearest, I love you with all my heart.”
“Sir Mark,” she said, turning to look half wonderingly, half in anger, in his flushed face, “do you forget that you are my father’s guest; that this is no place of gallantry, but that I, his simple, country-born child, am a mere rustic, and unfit for such as you?”
“Unfit!” he cried. “Shame, when you are beautiful as the fairest woman of King James’s court.”
“The evening is growing damp, Sir Mark,” said Mace coldly.
“Why are you so distant?” he whispered, trying to take her hand. “Nay, nay, this is too bad, you must have seen, you must know, that I love you.”
“I have seen, sir, that it has pleased you to pass compliments, as seems to be a favourite habit of yours, and you, sir, must have seen that they caused me pain.”
“Pain? When I’d give my right hand, my very life, to save you from a single pang! Mace, you know why I have lingered here, even to getting in disgrace with my Royal master, that I might be near you; and now for reward you grow cold as if we had never met before.”