“It is a sign of more than that, I’ve heard many a time,” she replied, and he became very red indeed, for he knew that as well as she, though he had not said it. “I’ll take it for the luck,” she went on.
“And for mine too,” said Gilian.
“That’s not so blate, John Hielan’man!” said she again to herself. “And for yours too,” she conceded, smiling. “When you find that I have taken it away from there you will know it is for your luck too.”
“And it will be at your breast then?” he cried eagerly.
She laughed and blushed and laughed again, most sweetly and most merrily. “It will be at—at—at my heart,” she said.
“Ah,” said he, in an instinct of fear that quelled his rapture; “ah, if they take you from me!”
“When I take your heather,” said she, “it will be for ever at my heart.”
Oh! then that savage moorland was Paradise for the dreamer, and he was a coquette’s slave, fettered by a compliment. The afternoon passed, for him at least, in a delirium of joy; she, though she never revealed it, was never at a moment’s rest from her plans of escape from her folly. Late in the afternoon she came to a lame conclusion.
“You will go down to the town to-night,” she said, “and——”
“And you!” he cried, alarmed at the notion of severance.