The very opposite was the impression now upon him as he stood alone in the silent thicket, with the words falling mechanically from his lips:
“She can never be mine!”
“You will, Blanche? You will?” were other words not spoken by himself, but heard by him, as he stood within a holly copse, screened by its evergreen frondage.
It was young Scudamore who was talking, and in a tone of appealing tenderness.
There was no reply, and the same words, with a slight addition, were repeated: “You will promise it, Blanche? You will?”
Stilling his breath, and the wild beating of his heart, Maynard listened for the answer. From the tone of the questioner’s voice he knew it to be a dialogue, and that the cousins were alone.
He soon saw that they were. Walking side by side along a wood-road, they came opposite to the spot where he was standing.
They stopped. He could not see them. Their persons were concealed by the prickly fascicles of the holly hanging low. These did not hinder him from hearing every word exchanged between the two.
How sweet to his ears was the answer given by the girl.
“I won’t, Frank! I won’t!”