"I meant to have spoken to Lady Helena and Mr. Stuart first," Sir Victor went on; "but that is all over now. I can't wait longer; I must take my sentence from your lips. I love you! What more can I say? You are the first my lips have ever said it to—the first my heart has ever felt it for. Edith, tell me, may I hope?"
She stood silent. They were on the summit of the hill. Away, far off, she could see the waving trees and tall chimneys of a stately mansion—Catheron Royals, no doubt. It looked a very grand and noble place; it might be her home for life—she who, in one sense, was homeless. A baronet stood beside her, offering her rank and wealth—she, penniless, pedigreeless Edith Darrell! All the dreams of life were being realized, and in this hour she felt neither triumph nor elation. She stood and listened, the sunlight on her gravely beautiful face, with vague wonder at herself for her apathy.
"Edith!" he cried out, "don't tell me I am too late—that some one has been before me and won your heart. I couldn't bear it! Your cousin assured me that when I spoke the answer would be favorable. I spoke to her that night in Killarney—I did not mention your name, but she understood me immediately. I told her I meant to speak as soon as we reached England. I asked her if she thought there was hope for me, and she—"
The passionate eagerness, the passionate love and fear within him checked his words suddenly. He stopped for a moment, and turned away.
"O Trixy! Trixy!" was Edith's thought; and ridiculous and out of place as the emotion was, her only desire still was an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh outright. What a horrible—what an unheard-of blunder the child had made!
She stood tracing figures on the grass with the point of her parasol, feeling strangely apathetic still. If her life had depended on it, she could hardly have accepted Sir Victor then. By and by she might feel half wild with exultation—not now.
He waited for the answer that did not come. Then he turned from her, pale with despair.
"I see how it is," he said, trying, not quite successfully, to steady his voice; "I am too late. You love your cousin, and are engaged to him. I feared it all along."
The brown starry eyes, lifted slowly from the grass and looked at him.
"My cousin? You mistake, Sir Victor; I am engaged to no one. I"—she set her lips suddenly and looked away at the trees and the turrets of Catheron Royals, shining in the brilliant sun—"I love no one."