Since the young man had been in hiding he had heard little of what was going on in the neighbourhood, George being uncommunicative, and it was only occasionally that he saw the Pig-driver. His beautiful companion puzzled him as much as he puzzled her, for he knew that, had he seen her face before, he could never have forgotten it.
His safety now lay in the possibility of her not describing him to any one, and he would have to secure her promise of silence, a precarious barrier indeed between him and detection. It had been the thousand chances to one against his meeting any one at that hour and place, but the one chance had turned up and confounded him. He was running perilously near the rocks.
“I think I ought to be starting for home,” said Isoline’s voice at his side after some time. “I am rested, and my foot is hardly painful since you have taken the thorn out. You have been very kind to me,” she added softly.
“Well, be grateful to me.”
“Oh, I am indeed.”
“Then stay a little longer to show it,” he said boldly, “it’s such a treat to look at a face like yours.”
“Why, you cannot see me in this darkness,” replied Isoline, tossing her head, but apparently regarding his remark as perfectly natural.
“But I know you are there, and when you are gone, who can tell when I shall see you again? You don’t know how terribly I’d like to.”
There was real feeling in his voice.