"Bab, can't you see how I love you!" said David, his voice thick. "Can't you?"
Bab slowly drew in her breath. Her lips parting, her breast heaving with the tumult of emotion that the fire in his had roused, she gazed down at him in troubled bewilderment. No need to tell her what she had done. One look at him was enough.
"Oh, Davy, Davy!" she murmured. "I didn't know! I didn't know!"
The cry came from her eloquent of the distress, the doubt that filled her mind with its conflict. There were indeed many things Bab didn't know! David as a cousin she might love, but did she love him otherwise? Cousin or lover, which was it to be? The weeks, the months he had been with her had shown how perfectly he in his gentleness could be the one; could he now be the other, too? Her eyes grew more troubled!
"I didn't know," said Bab again, murmuring as if to herself. "I didn't think that cousins loved like that!"
She saw him stir, moving uncomfortably.
"Cousins?" he echoed.
"Yes," whispered Bab; "I didn't think——"
A strange look came into his eyes.
"Look at me, Bab," he ordered; and as ordered Bab looked at him. "Now tell me," said David; "tell me the truth! If I—if I were not your cousin, then—then——"