“And now I suppose you will go and boast in the village taproom that you met the captain’s cousin, and insulted her out in the wood.”
“Do you think I’m a fool, miss?” he said sharply. “Do you think I’d ever go and tell on a girl? Why, I shouldn’t tell on a common servant or a farmer’s lass, let alone on a handsome lady like you.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, half turning away.
“Yes, do, miss, please do,” he cried earnestly, “you may trust me. I’d sooner go and hang myself than tell anybody—there!”
She turned her eyes upon him, and her feeling of delight increased as she realised the truth of all that Caleb said. Then, as he looked up at her now, with the appealing, beseeching aspect of a dog in his countenance, she made a pretence of hesitating.
“No,” she said. “I’m afraid I cannot trust you.”
“Yes, do, miss, do.”
“If I do you will insult me again.”
“I didn’t know it was insulting of you to love you,” he said sullenly.
“Then I tell you it was, sir. If you had waited it would have been different.”