"How dare you talk to me like this?"
She felt as if she would have given anything to have been able to turn and flee, instead of seeming to stultify herself by so halting a rejoinder; but her feet were as if they were rooted to the ground.
"Do you mean, how dare I tell you that I love you? Why, I'd dare to tell you if you were a queen upon your throne and I your most insignificant subject. I'd dare to tell you if I knew that the telling would bring the heavens down. I'd dare to tell you if all the gamekeepers on your estate were behind you there, pointing their guns at me, and I was assured they'd pull their triggers the instant I had told. Why should I not dare to tell you that I love you? I'm a man; and, after all, you're but a woman, though so rare an one. I dare to tell you more. I dare to tell you that the first time I saw you lying there, on that grassy cushion, I began to love you then. And it has grown since, until now, it consumes me as with fire. It has grown to be so great, that, mysterious and strange--and indeed, incredible though it seems--I've a sort of inkling somewhere in my bosom, that one day yet I'll win you for my wife. What do you say to that?"
"I say that you don't know what you're talking about. That you're insane."
"If that be so, I've a fancy that it's a sort of insanity which, in howsoever so slight a degree, is shared by you. Come closer."
He leaned over the fence. Almost before she knew it, he had his arms about her; had drawn her close to him, and had kissed her on the mouth. She struck at him with her clenched fists; and, fighting like some wild thing, tearing herself loose, rushed headlong down the woodland path, as if Satan were at her heels.
CHAPTER VIII
[THE LADY WANDERS]
That was the beginning of a very bad time for Mrs Plummer.
She was sitting peacefully reading--she was not one of those ladies who indulge in "fancy work," and was always ready to confess that never, under any circumstances, if she could help it, would she have a needle in her hand--when Miss Arnott came rushing into the room in a condition which would have been mildly described as dishevelled. She was a young lady who was a little given to vigorous entrances and exits, and was not generally, as regards her appearance, a disciple of what has been spoken of as "the bandbox brigade." But on that occasion she moved Mrs Plummer, who was not easily moved in that direction, to an exhibition of surprise.