He drew a long breath, and without replying placed his strong arms around her and, drawing her to him, kissed her passionately upon the lips.
“Thank you, my darling,” he murmured. “Thank you for those words. They put into me a fresh hope, a fresh determination, and a fearlessness—oh! you—you don’t know!” he added in a low, earnest voice.
“All I know, Hugh, is that you love me,” was the simple response as she reciprocated his fierce caress.
“Love you, darling!” he cried. “Yes. You are mine—mine!”
“True, Hugh. I love no other man. I hate that tailor’s dummy, George Sherrard, and as for the Count—well, he’s an idiotic Frenchman—the ‘hardy annual of Monte Carlo’ I heard him called the other day. No, Hugh, I assure you that you have no cause for jealousy.”
And she smiled sweetly into his eyes.
They were standing together beneath a twisted old olive tree through the dark foliage of which the sun shone in patches, while by their feet the mountain torrent from the high, snow-clad Alps rippled and splashed over the great grey boulders towards the sea.
“I know it, darling! I know it,” Hugh said in a stifled voice. He was thinking of the tragedy of that night, but dare not disclose to her his connexion with it, because he knew the police suspected him of making that murderous attack upon the famous “Mademoiselle.”
“Forgive me, Hugh,” exclaimed the girl, still clasped in her lover’s arms. “But somehow you don’t seem your old self to-day. What is the matter? Can’t you tell me?”
He drew a long breath.