"Dear, you don't know the world," he said—"There may have been all sorts of dangers and difficulties—anyhow, I don't bear him any grudge! He gave you to Briar Farm!"
She sighed, and made no response. Inadvertently they had walked beyond the orchard and were now on the very edge of the little thicket where the tomb of the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin glimmered pallidly through the shadow of the leaves. Innocent quickened her steps.
"Come!" she said.
He followed her reluctantly. Almost he hated the old stone knight which served her as a subject for so many fancies and feelings, and when she beckoned him to the spot where she stood beside the recumbent effigy, he showed a certain irritation of manner which did not escape her.
"You are cross with him!" she said, reproachfully. "You must not be so.
He is the founder of your family—"
"And the finish of it, I suppose!" he answered, abruptly. "He stands between us two, Innocent!—a cold stone creature with no heart—and you prefer him to me! Oh, the folly of it all! How can you be so cruel!"
She looked at him wistfully—almost her resolution failed her. He saw her momentary hesitation and came close up to her.
"You do not know what love is!" he said, catching her hand in his own—"Innocent, you do not know! If you did!—if I might teach you—!"
She drew her hand away very quickly and decidedly.
"Love does not want teaching," she said—"it comes—when it will, and where it will! It has not come to me, and you cannot force it, Robin! If I were your wife—your wife without any wife's love for you—I should grow to hate Briar Farm!—yes, I should!—I should pine and die in the very place where I have been so happy!—and I should feel that HE"—here she pointed to the sculptured Sieur Amadis—"would almost rise from this tomb and curse me!"