'You are not angry with me, then?'
'Angry with you! What an idea, Richard; such a trifling accident as that. Why it has not even hurt the cloth.'
'No, but it has scalded your hand; let me look.' And as Ethel tried to hide it he held it firmly in his own.
'You see it is nothing, hardly a red spot!' but he did not let it go.
'Ethel, will you promise me one thing? No, don't draw your hand away, I shall say nothing to frighten you. I was a fool just now, but then one is a fool sometimes when one comes suddenly upon the woman one loves. But will you promise not to shun me again, not as though you hated me, I mean?'
'Hated you! For shame, Richard.'
'Well, then, as though you were afraid of me. You disdained my assistance just now, you would not let me lift you from your horse. How often have I done so before, and you never repulsed me!'
'You ought not to have noticed it, you ought to have understood,' returned Ethel, with quivering lips. It was very sweet to be talking to him again if only he would not encroach on his privilege.
'Then let things be between us as they always have been,' he pleaded. 'I have done nothing to forfeit your friendship, have I? I have humbled myself, not you,' with a flavour of bitterness which she could not find it in her heart to resent. 'Let me see you sitting here sometimes in my father's house; such a sight will go far to soothe me. Shall it be so, Ethel?'
'Yes, if you wish it,' she returned, almost humbly.