"What did she mean by that? How dared she!"
"See here, Christine," he said, laying his hand on her quivering shoulder, "I didn't say much to her. I was over there one afternoon, the afternoon I asked you to marry me. I drank a lot of liqueur; she looked very pretty, and before she had a chance to say yes or no about it I kissed her. Now that's a fact. I've never spent five minutes with her alone since; I haven't even seen her since, until this morning. Now that's the honest truth. I know it was scampish; but I never pretended to be good. It is nothing for you to make a fuss about, because, whatever I am—and it isn't much one way or another—I am all yours, straight as a die, Christine. I suppose, if we lived together fifty years, I'd probably kiss fifty women—once a year isn't a high average; but those kisses wouldn't mean anything; and you, you, my girl"—he bent his head down to her "why, you mean everything to me, and I wouldn't give one kiss of yours for a hundred thousand of any other woman's in the world! What you've done for me, and what you'd do for me—"
There was a strange pathos in his voice, an uncommon thing, because his usual eloquence was, as a rule, more pleasing than touching. A quick change of feeling passed over her, and her eyes filled with tears. He ran his arm round her shoulder.
"Ah, come, come!" he said, with a touch of insinuating brogue, and kissed her. "Come, it's all right. I didn't mean anything, and she didn't mean anything; and let's start fresh again."
She looked up at him with quick intelligence. "That's just what we'll have to do," she said. "The Cure this morning at mass scolded the people about the Rebellion, and said that Nic and you had brought all this trouble upon Bonaventure; and everybody looked at our pew and snickered. Oh, how I hate them all! Then I jumped up—"
"Well?" asked Ferrol, "and what then?"
"I told them that my brother wasn't a coward, and that you were my husband."
"And then—then what happened?"
"Oh, then there was a great fuss in the church, and the Cure said ugly things, and I left and came home quick. And now—"
"Well, and now?" Ferrol interrupted.