"No," she faltered shyly: "she might have forbidden me to come to-day, and I wanted so much to see the sketches. Will you mind if I tell her to-day? I think I must tell her," she pleaded, with bewitching naïveté. "Do you know that I never had a secret from her before?"
"Be sure if you do tell her she will forbid you ever to be civil to me again," said Durnford; "there will be an end of all our pleasant gossip across this dear old rail."
"Is it wrong, then, for me to talk to you?"
"Your governess would think it wrong: your father would shut you up and keep you on bread and water rather than leave you at liberty to talk to me."
"Why?" she asked, with a look of distress.
"Because you are a wealthy heiress and I am a poor devil—hack scribbler—living by my wits."
"But you are not a bad man?" half compassionatingly, half in terror.
"There have been many worse; yet I am far from perfect. You will never hear one word of evil from my lips, or inspire one base thought in my mind. To you I shall be all goodness."
"Then Mademoiselle cannot object to my seeing you now and then; I'll bring her here to-morrow. She can't walk so far, but I have a pony-carriage in which I sometimes drive her round the park."
"Don't!" pleaded Herrick, clasping her hand for the first time. "Do not, for pity's sake, dispel my happy dream; do not breathe one word of your new friend to any one. Be assured it would end everything. You would fade for ever from my life, like some lovely paradisaic vision, and leave me in everlasting darkness. Let me see you now and then, just as we have met to-day. It cannot last long; I must go back to London shortly with my friend Lavendale. I shall be swallowed in the vortex of London life, full of temptations and wickednesses of every kind. Be my good angel while you can. Elderly people like your father and your governess would never be able to understand our friendship: how pure, how holy, how secure for you, how elevating for me. Do not tell your governess of my existence, Miss Bosworth, or at least tell her not until you feel there is danger or discredit in my acquaintance."