Vara looked at the lad with eyes of shy terror. This was indeed something new. Even Cleg, who would readily have died for her, or given her his coat or his house, if he had one, had never offered to kiss her. So at the sound of Kit's voice her heart also drummed in her ears emptily, as if her head were deep under water.
She stood still, looking away from him, but not turning her head down. Kit bent his head and kissed her fairly.
A strange pang ran responsively to Vara's heart—a flash of rapture to Kit's. They parted without a word, the girl walking sedately out of the shadows in one direction, and the lad running with all his might back to the farm in the other.
Each had their own several communings.
Vara said to herself, "Why does not Cleg think to speak to me like that?"
It was a great blunder on Cleg's part, certainly, and, if heart-aches were to be spared, one which he should speedily set himself to repair.
And as Kit Kennedy went home he said, over and over, "I hae kissed her. I hae kissed her. Naething and naebody can take that from me, at least."
But with the stilling of his leaping and rejoicing heart came the thought, "But had I the right? He fed them and clothed them, and never asked as much. He is better than I. I will not trouble them any more. For he is better and worthier than I."
So Kit's dreams and imaginings helped him to something more knightly in his renunciation than in the brief rapturous flash of possession.