"To Fairfield; so rumour says."
May stopped short in her walk, and Paul heard her breath coming unevenly. When she spoke again her voice was low, but angry.
"You outstrip the limits of friendship in daring to tell me what the gossips here say of me."
"I had no intention of telling you. I suppose it slipped out because I hate to believe it true."
"You need not believe it; I am not going to marry Sir Cecil Bland," said May, coldly. "What has it to do with you, may I ask?"
"Thank Heaven!" muttered Paul, under his breath.
"What have you against him?"
"Nothing. Except that I suppose he loves you, and I love you too, and, although I know better than you can tell me, that my love is perfectly hopeless, I can bear it if I may let you live in my heart a little while, as the one woman in all the world to me, the only woman I have ever loved or ever wished to marry. That must not have been if you were pledged to marry some one else."
"Oh, stop!" said May, laying an entreating hand upon his arm; "I feel as if I had been so cruel, I would not rest until I had you for a friend, but I never dreamed of this."
"Nor I, until to-day," said Paul. "But when I heard that some one else was likely to marry you I knew."