"I can see no end of it all," he went on—and there was despair in his voice. "It must be years—perhaps many years—before I can think of marrying. I ought to have remembered this—I ought not to have forgotten myself." Then he rose abruptly, and his face was very pale. "Miss Ward, you have been very good to listen to me so patiently, but I must not keep you here any longer; it will not be safe for you."
He was standing before her as he spoke, but for a moment she made no reply, only sat with bent head, and her hands folded tightly together in her lap. But as he stooped and put out his hand, as though to help her to rise, she suddenly looked up in his face.
"Thank you," she said, quite simply. "You need not fear that I should ever misunderstand one so good and kind;" and then she flushed up, and rose quickly from the bench. "It is too late to go on now, and Miss Harford will be expecting me. Please do not come any farther. There is no need to spoil your walk. Give my love to your sister and little Bet—dear little Bet."
"Are you sure? Do you not wish me to accompany you?" he stammered; but she shook her head with a semblance of gaiety.
"Oh, no. I shall be at the Red House in five minutes. Good-bye, good-bye."
Waveney was in such a desperate hurry that she forgot to shake hands. She almost ran down the little path between the furze-bushes.
The thrushes and blackbirds had ceased their songs, and the sunshine had faded from the landscape, but in Waveney's heart there was a strange, new joy.
"He loves me, he loves me," she was saying to herself, "though he will not tell me so for a long time. Oh, how good he is! how patient and self-sacrificing!" And then her eyes were dim as she remembered the suppressed pain in his voice. "I have never been free to choose my own path." Was that not true, absolutely true? and could any man have done his duty more nobly? And yet this hero, this king among men, actually loved her! And now Waveney's eyes were full of tears.