She came a little nearer to him at the sound of her own name, and, looking up, said in a subdued tone, "I'd believe anything you said."
Fiercely red once more became John, hot as with a furnace-blast: but nobody saw this, not even the pair of eyes that were for a moment lifted to his.
"I'm afraid I don't deserve as much as that," he said, humbly. "I say things I don't mean, just like the rest."
"I wouldn't believe anybody but yourself as said so. Perhaps you didn't mean it then, Mr Rushton, when you promised me that."
"What did I promise you, Mary?"
"Oh, Mr Rushton, you can't—you can't have forgotten! You promised me a nice gold locket with your picture in it."
They were walking on now side by side in the growing dimness, and John had not even daylight to protect him, or the expression of his face.
"My picture?" he said, in dismay. "Was I such a fool as all that? You shall have the gold locket and welcome, Mary; but you don't mean to say you would like my ugly mug inside?"
"Oh, ugly, indeed!" she said; "that's just what I should like best."
Poor John, not knowing what to say, overwhelmed with humiliation and shame, yet a little ruefully elated, too, that she should like his ugly mug, made a clumsy diversion by a total change of subject, and asked hurriedly whether anything had happened since he had been away.