“Oh, why have you told me this now?” she exclaimed.  “You think I am lonely, and you are sorry for me.  I cannot stay longer.  Aunt will be waiting for me.”

He sprang before her in the narrow path.

“You must hear what I have to say before you go,” he said curtly.  “We are not likely to meet again for some time if we part now.  I intend to leave England.”

She looked at him at those words, but he was at a loss to divine the meaning of the look.

“You are leaving England?” A quick ear would have caught a strange note in her soft voice.  “Oh, but you cannot—­you have responsibilities.”

“Are you thinking of the title, and your father’s money?” he observed, glancing at her curiously.  “What do you know about it, Sisily?”

“I have heard of nothing but the title ever since I can remember,” she replied.

“I learnt for the first time this afternoon that I was brought down here to rob you,” he said gloomily.

“I am glad for your sake if you are to have it—­the money,” she simply replied.

He answered with a bitter, almost vengeful aspect.

“I would not take the money or the title, if they ever came to me.  They should be yours.  I will show them.  I will let them know that they cannot do what they like with me.”  He brought out this obscure threat in a savage voice.  “If I had only known—­if I had guessed that your father—­” He ceased abruptly, with a covert glance, like one fearing he had said too much.

She kept her eyes fixed on the lengthening shadows around the rocks.

“Do not take it so much to heart,” she timidly counselled.  “It is nothing to me—­the title or the money.  They made my mother’s life a misery.  My father was always cruel to her because of them, I do not know why.  It is in his nature to be cruel, I think.  He has a heart of granite, like these rocks.  I hate him!” She brought out the last words in a sudden burst of passion which startled him.

“What nonsense it all is!” he exclaimed, suddenly changing his tone.  “All this talk about a title which may never be revived.  Let them have it between them, and the money too.  Sisily, I love you, dear, love you better than all the titles and money in the world.  I am not worthy of you, but I will try to be.  Let us go Sway and start life ... just our two selves.”

“I cannot.”  She stood in front of him with downcast gaze, and then raised her eyes to his.

Had he been as experienced in the ways of her sex as he believed himself to be, he would have read more in her elusive glance than her words.

“You may be sorry if you do not,” he said, with a sudden access of male brutality.  “There are reasons—­reasons I cannot explain to you—­”

“Even if there are I cannot do what you ask,” she replied.  Her face was still averted, but her voice was steady.

“Then do you want to go with Aunt to London?” he persisted, trying to catch a glimpse of her hidden face.