'I do not understand you,' she faltered a little haughtily, while flashing one upward glance at him.
'Considering the way you view men now, and the way you avoid or rebuff me, I wonder that I have got a word with you, as I do to-night.'
'Do I rebuff you?'
'Yes—to my sorrow, I have felt it.'
'Sorrow—of what do you really accuse me?'
'Treating me with coldness, distance——'
'I am not aware—that—that——' she paused, not knowing what to say.
'Hester—dearest Hester,' said he in a low and earnest voice, while stealing nearer her and assuring himself by one swift glance that they were alone in the conservatory; 'let me call you so, were it only for to-night—you know how long I have loved you, and surely you will love me a little in time. I know how true, how tender of heart you are; I know, too, that I have no rival in the present—with the past I have nothing to do; but tell me, even silently, by one touch of your hand, that you love me in turn, or will try to love me in time, Hester—dear, dear Hester!'
She opened her lips, but no sound came from them, and her interlaced hands trembled in her lap, for the 'scene' had gone somewhat beyond her idea in depth and earnestness; and she felt that Malcolm Skene's deduction as regarded there being no rival in the present was a mistake in one sense.
Encouraged by her silence, and construing it in his own favour, little conceiving that her head was then full of a false idol, he resumed: