Robin paused, and Barbara, with her eyes fixed on the ground, commenced pulling to pieces the rose-bud he had given her.
"Supposing all this, Barbara——?"
"Well, Robin?"
"Do you think, Barbara, you would then—marry me?"
"I never thought of marriage, seeing that I am too young, and, withal, too inexperienced; but there is one thing, Robin——"
"I knew it," interrupted the Ranger, in one of his sudden bursts of bitterness; "I might easily have known it—Beauty and ugliness!—Fool! fool! to imagine that a girl could look on me without loathing! There—go to your mistress, go to your mistress, and make gay sport of Robin Hays!"
The soft eyes of Barbara filled with tears; she made no reply, but prosecuted her attack on the rose-bud so vigorously, that nought but the stem remained in her fingers.
"You need not have torn that rose to bits before my face! Ay, trample on its leaves as you do on my heart!—Why do you not go to your mistress?"
"You are very wayward, Robin; one time smooth, at other times, and without cause, rugged as a path through a thorny common: I can only pray that the Lord may teach you better than to misinterpret my words, and mock a poor girl who never entertained a thought to your disadvantage."
She could say no more, for the large round tears forced their way down her cheeks, as she turned towards the house with a bowed head and a feeble step. But Robin's mood had again changed.