"I must live,"—calmly.
"But a servant to public caprice? It ought not to be! I realize that I can not force you to accept my gift, but this I shall do: I shall buy in the horses and give them back to you."
"You mustn't. I shall have no place to put them. Oh!"—with a gesture full of despair and unshed tears, "why have you done all this? Why this mean masquerade, this submitting to the humiliations I have contrived for you, this act of generosity? Why?"
Perhaps she knew the answers to her own questions, but, womanlike, wanted to be told.
And at that moment, though I am not sure, I believe Warburton's guarding angel gave him some secret advice.
"You ask me why I have played the fool in the motley?"—finding the strength of his voice. "Why I have submitted in silence to your just humiliations? Why I have acted what you term generously? Do you mean to tell me that you have not guessed the riddle?"
She turned her delicate head aside and switched the grasses with her riding-crop.
"Well,"—flinging aside his cap, which he had been holding in his hand, "I will tell you. I wanted to be near you. I wanted to be, what you made me, your servant. It is the one great happiness that I have known. I have done all these things because—because, God help me, I love you! Yes, I love you, with every beat of my heart!"—lifting his head proudly. Upon his face love had put the hallowed seal. "Do not turn your head away, for my love is honest. I ask nothing, nothing; I expect nothing. I know that it is hopeless. What woman could love a man who has made himself ridiculous in her eyes, as I have made myself in yours?"—bitterly.
"No, not ridiculous; never that!" she interrupted, her face still averted.
He strode toward her hastily, and for a moment her heart almost ceased to beat. But all he did was to kneel at her feet and kiss the hem of her riding-skirt. He rose hurriedly.