“I suppose you could,” I said.

“Yes,” she continued, “but I could not remain longer from home, and when I left him he asked me to accept a keepsake which had belonged to his mother, as a token that there should be no feud between him and me.”  And she drew from her bosom a golden heart studded with diamonds and pierced by a white silver arrow.

“I, of course, accepted it, then we said ‘good-by,’ and I put Dolcy to a gallop that she might speedily take me out of temptation.”

“Have you ridden to Overhaddon for the purpose of seeing Manners many times since he gave you the heart?” I queried.

“What would you call ’many times’?” she asked, drooping her head.

“Every day?” I said interrogatively.  She nodded.  “Yes.  But I have seen him only once since the day when he gave me the heart.”

Nothing I could say would do justice to the subject, so I remained silent.

“But you have not yet told me how your father came to know of the golden heart,” I said.

“It was this way:  One morning while I was looking at the heart, father came upon me suddenly before I could conceal it.  He asked me to tell him how I came by the jewel, and in my fright and confusion I could think of nothing else to say, so I told him you had given it to me.  He promised not to speak to you about the heart, but he did not keep his word.  He seemed pleased.”

“Doubtless he was pleased,” said I, hoping to lead up to the subject so near to Sir George’s heart, but now farther than ever from mine.

The girl unsuspectingly helped me.

“Father asked if you had spoken upon a subject of great interest to him and to yourself, and I told him you had not.  ‘When he does speak,’ said father most kindly, ’I want you to grant his request’—­and I will grant it, Cousin Malcolm.”  She looked in my face and continued:  “I will grant your request, whatever it may be.  You are the dearest friend I have in the world, and mine is the most loving and lovable father that girl ever had.  It almost breaks my heart when I think of his suffering should he learn of what I have done—­that which I just told to you.”  She walked beside me meditatively for a moment and said, “To-morrow I will return Sir John’s gift and I will never see him again.”

I felt sure that by to-morrow she would have repented of her repentance; but I soon discovered that I had given her much more time than she needed to perform that trifling feminine gymnastic, for with the next breath she said:—­

“I have no means of returning the heart.  I must see him once more and I will give—­give it—­it—­back to—­to him, and will tell him that I can see him never again.”  She scarcely had sufficient resolution to finish telling her intention.  Whence, then, would come the will to put it in action?  Forty thieves could not have stolen the heart from her, though she thought she was honest when she said she would take it to him.