“N-no!”
“You love another then?”
“Oh, no, no!”
“It is that I have startled you by my premature confession, Neva?” he cried tremulously. “Dolt that I am! I have thought and dreamed of you so much, that I had forgotten how perfect a stranger I must seem to you after all these years of separation. You cannot take up the old life where we dropped it. I was foolish to have expected it. Do not let my undue haste prejudice you against me. It will not, Neva?”
“No, Arthur,” answered the girl lowly and hesitatingly.
“And you will give me a chance to reprieve my error?” he demanded eagerly. “Perhaps in time you may grow to love me, Neva—”
“Arthur,” said the young girl, nerving herself to tell him of her father’s supposed last wishes, “I have something to say to you. Papa—”
Her voice died out in a half sob.
“Well, darling?” said the young earl, bending nearer to her, his eyes burning with the love that filled his being. “What of Sir Harold? Did you fancy that he would not have approved of our love?”
Neva nodded a dumb assent.