“I know,” she said in a sad, blank tone.  Her own heart beat fast at his passionate words.

“Then why do you treat me like this?” he asked.  “Is it because I have annoyed you, that you perhaps think I am not keeping faith with you?  I know I was absent a long time, but it was really not my own fault.  My people made me go round the world.  I didn’t want to, I assure you.  I’d far rather have been up here at Connachan all the time, and near you, my own well-beloved.”

“I believe you would, Walter,” she answered, turning towards him with her hand upon his shoulder.  “But I do wish you wouldn’t reproach me for my undemonstrativeness each time we meet.  It saddens me.”

“I know I ought not to reproach you,” he hastened to assure her.  “I have no right to do so; but somehow you have of late grown so sphinx-like that you are not the Gabrielle I used to know.”

“Why not?” And she laughed, a strange, hollow laugh.  “Explain yourself.”

“In the days gone by, before I went abroad, you were not so particular about our meetings being clandestine.  You did not care who saw us or what people might say.”

“I was a girl then.  I have now learnt wisdom, and the truth of the modern religion which holds that the only sin is that of being found out.”

“But why are you so secret in all your actions?” he demanded.  “Whom do you fear?”

“Fear!” she echoed, starting and staring in his direction.  “Why, I fear nobody!  What—­what makes you think that?”

“Because it has lately struck me that you meet me in secret because—­well, because you are afraid of someone, or do not wish us to be seen.”

“Why, how very foolish!” she laughed.  “Don’t my father and mother both know that we love each other?  Besides, I am surely my own mistress.  I would never marry a man I don’t love,” she added in a tone of quiet defiance.

“And am I to take it that you really do love me, after all?” he inquired very earnestly.

“Why, of course,” she replied without hesitation, again placing her arm about his neck and kissing him.  “How foolish of you to ask such a question, Walter!  When will you be convinced that the answer I gave you long ago was the actual truth?”

“Men who love as fervently as I do are apt to be somewhat foolish,” he declared.

“Then don’t be foolish any longer,” she urged in a matter-of-fact voice, lifting her lips to his and kissing him.  “You know I love you, Walter; therefore you should also know that it I avoid you in public I have some good reason for doing so.”

“A reason!” he cried.  “What reason?  Tell me.”

She shook her head.  “That is my own affair,” she responded.  “I repeat again that my affection for you is undiminished, if such repetition really pleases you, as it seems to do.”

“Of course it pleases me, dearest,” he declared.  “No words are sweeter to my ears than the declaration of your love.  My only regret is that, now I am at home again, I do not see so much of you, sweetheart, as I had anticipated.”