"Cruel?" she says, lifting to his the half-shy gaze of the dark and dreamy eyes.
"Yes, cruel, for you forbade me even to look at you," he answers, smiling now over that past pain in the eager elation of the present. "Ah, Lady Vera, you did not know then, perhaps, what a cross you laid upon me—that I loved you even then so dearly——"
"Hush!" she cries, in such a startled voice that he pauses and looks around to see what has frightened her.
"What is it, Lady Vera? Has anything alarmed you?" he asks her, anxiously.
"Nothing, but that I am tired. I will sit down here on this mossy log, and rest a moment," she answers, sinking wearily down, a sudden paleness chasing the roses from her cheeks. Captain Lockhart throws himself down on the short, velvety, green turf at her feet. There ensues a short silence, broken only by the hum of the busy insects, the song of the birds, and the soft rustle of a passing wind in the leaves overhead.
There is some embarrassment in their silence. Her cry of alarm has been so sharp and sudden that he does not know how to return to the interrupted subject. And yet his heart is so full of it.
He looks into the lovely, spirited young face, and he cannot keep the words back any longer.
He turns to her suddenly, and tells her the story of his love in burning words, whose eloquent fire brooks no check nor remonstrance. His face glows under its soldierly brown, his blue eyes darken with feeling, his voice trembles with passion, but when he pauses, Lady Vera, who has heard him through with tightly clenched hands and a strangely blanched face, can only falter:
"You love me, Captain Lockhart? I thought—that we were only friends."
The frightened, wondering voice falls like ice upon his heart.