I was on the walk along which I had once before come with her. The water alternately gloomed and sparkled beneath. The fish sulked and waved lazy tails, anchored in the water-swirls below the falls, their heads steady to the stream as the needle to the pole.
The green of summer was yet untouched by autumn frosts, save for a russet hair or two on the outmost plumes of the birks that wept above the stream.
Suddenly something gay glanced through the wavering sunsprays of the woodland and the green scatter of the shadows. A white summer gown, a dainty hat white-plumed, but beneath the bright feather a bowed head, a girl with tears in her eyes—and lo! Mary Gordon standing alone and in sorrow by the water-pools of the Deuch.
I had never learned to do such things, and even now I cannot tell what it was that came over me. For without a moment’s hesitation I kneeled on one knee, and taking her hand, I kissed it with infinite love and respect.
She turned quickly from me, dashing the tears from her face with her hand.
“Quintin!” she cried—I think before she thought.
“Mary!” I said, for the first time in my life saying the word to my lady’s face.
She held her hand with the palm pressed against my breast, pushing me from her that she might examine my face.
“Why are you here?” she asked anxiously, “you have heard what they say of my father?”
“I have heard, and I come to know?” I said quietly.