"Would you have cared so very much if I had sprained my ankle?" she faltered, looking up into his face with those great, dark, mesmeric eyes that no one had ever yet been able to resist.
He looked away from her quickly and did not reply.
"Would you?" persisted Iris, in her low, musical voice.
Throwing prudence to the winds, he turned to her suddenly and clasped her still closer in his arms.
"Does not your own heart teach you that, Iris?" he returned, hoarsely.
"Oh! if I could only believe what my heart would fain tell me," she murmured, "I—I would be so happy!"
"If it told you that I—I love you," he cried, "then it would—"
The rest of the sentence died away on his lips for there, directly in the path before him, stood Mrs. Kemp. She might have been blind to all her beautiful niece's short-comings, but she was not a woman to so mix right and wrong as to permit Iris to listen to a word of love from one she knew belonged, in the sight of God, to another.
Iris was equal to the occasion.
"Oh, aunt!" she cried, "I am so glad that you happened along just now. I—I hurt my foot, and it was so painful that I had to sit down and rest; and Mr. Kendal was kind enough to remain here with me a few moments, although—although—besides the invitations we had to mail, he had other important letters to go out to-day."