"I am so loth that the Fusileers should deprive you of him."
"Talk not of that; but when you see my goat, my old pet Carneydd Llewellyn, marching proudly at their head, and decked with chaplets on St. David's day, when you are far, far away from us, you will--" she paused.
"What, Winifred?"
"Think sometimes of Craigaderyn--of to-day--and of me, perhaps," she added, with a laugh that sounded strangely unlike one.
"Do I require aught to make me think of you?" said I, patting kindly the plump, ungloved hand with which she was caressing the goat's head, and which in whiteness rivalled the hue of his glossy coat; and thereon I saw a Conway pearl, in a ring I had given her long ago, when she was quite a little girl.
"I hope not--and papa--I hope not."
The bright beaming face was upturned to me, and, as the deuce would have it, I kissed her: the impulse was irresistible.
She trembled then, withdrew a pace or two, grew very pale, and her eyes filled with tears.
"You should not have done that, Harry--I mean, Mr. Hardinge."
There was something wild and pitiful in her face.