"Helen, I am loving Margaret because—I will not can tell why, but there is peace and a great happiness in me when she is near me."
"I understand; it is that so great calm—me, I would kill you if you love me and become cold; but she—she would smile and her heart be breaking."
"I am thinking that too," said Bryde, and his eyes were soft. The horses were walking side by side, snapping a little playfully, for they were loving the night.
"Mon coeur," whispered the lass, and her voice was low and her face half-shamed, but very brave. "We would have so great a son," said she, and hung her head low after one long look at the man. At the jerk on the rein, the horses stopped.
"You are the bravest lass I will ever meet," said Bryde, and there was a fire of admiration in his eyes, and a ring in his voice. Her hands groped out to his blindly, and she swayed to him.
"It is heaven to be here," said she, and pressed her face against his breast, her eyes wide and dark, and her face half hidden. "Dear,"—her whole body quivered at the word,—"there is not any word a man can say will be telling how much I am loving the bravery of you for that word. It is in me to hold you here against my heart for the bravery of it."
"Take me," she whispered—"see, I am ready," and she opened her arms wide and held her face upwards. Her eyes were fast shut and the long lashes dark on her cheek. There came a look of infinite tenderness on the fierce swarthy face of Bryde McBride.
"And afterwards, my brave lass?"
"Ah, then, I could not let you go. Jesu aid me . . . you are mine from the beginning; it is not right that you love that other. Be kind to me, Bryde, let me whisper—je t'adore, always I love you—thus," she cried, and kissed him wildly in a kind of madness. "I think," said she, "when I am standing with Hugh to be married, I think I will run to you," and then—
"Take me home now," all brokenly she spoke, "my brave night is finished."