“Can you?” she asked, doubtfully.

“Yes, I can, indeed, Madaline.  Deposit those peaches in their green leaves on the ground.  Now place both your hands in mine.”

She quietly obeyed the first half of his request as though she were a child, and then she paused.  The sweet face crimsoned again; he took her hands in his.

“You must be obedient,” he said.  “Now look at me.”

But the white lids drooped over the happy eyes.

“Look at me, Madaline,” he repeated, “and say, ’Norman, I do love you.  I will forget all the nonsense I have talked about inequality of position, and will be your wife.’”

“In justice to yourself I cannot say it.”

He felt the little hands tremble in his grasp, and he released them with a kiss.

“You will be compelled to say it some day, darling.  You might as well try now.  If I cannot win you for my wife, I will have no wife, Madaline.  Ah, now you are sorry you have vexed me!

    “’And so it was—­half sly, half shy;
      You would and would not, little one,
    Although I pleaded tenderly
      And you and I were all alone.’

Why are you so hard, Madaline?  I am sure you like me a little; you dare not raise your eyes to mine and say, ‘I do not love you, Norman.’”

“No,” she confessed, “I dare not.  But there is love and love; the lowest love is all self, the highest is all sacrifice.  I like the highest.”

And then her eyes fell on the peaches, and she gave a little cry of alarm.

“What will the duchess say?” she cried.  “Oh, Lord Arleigh, let me go.”

“Give me one kind word, then.”

“What am I to say?  Oh, do let me go!”

“Say, ‘I like you, Norman.’”

“I like you, Norman,” she said; and, taking up the peaches, she hastened away.  Yet, with her flushed face and the glad light in her happy eyes, she did not dare to present herself at once before the duchess and Lady Peters.

Chapter XXI.

Was there some strange, magnetic attraction between Lord Arleigh and Madaline, or could it be that the valet, knowing or guessing the state of his master’s affections, gave what he no doubt considered a timely hint?  Something of the kind must have happened, for Madaline, unable to sleep, unable to rest, had risen in the early morning, while the dew was on the grass, and had gone out into the shade of the woods.  The August sun shone brightly, a soft wind fanned her cheeks.

Madaline looked round before she entered the woods.  The square turrets of Verdun Royal rose high above the trees.  They were tall and massive, with great umbrageous boughs and massive rugged trunks, the boughs almost reaching down to the long, thick grass.  A little brook went singing through the woods—­a brook of clear, rippling water.  Madaline sat down by the brook-side.  Her head ached for want of sleep, her heart was stirred by a hundred varied emotions.