She looked at him wonderingly.  His words and manner were strange and potent; and, although she had just been assuring herself that she would resist his advances on every occasion, she rose at his request and gave him her hand.

Then the tender thoughts which had lain so deep in his heart flew to his lips, and he wooed her with a fervour and nobility as astonishing to himself as to Katherine.  He reminded her of all the sweet intercourse of their happy lives, and of the fidelity with which he had loved her.  “When I was a lad ten years old, and saw you first in your mother’s arms, I called you then ‘my little wife.’  Oh, my Katherine, my sweet Katherine!  Who is there that can take you from me?”

“Neil, like a brother to me you have been.  Like a dear brother, I love you.  But your wife to be!  That is not the same.  Ask me not that.”

“Only that can satisfy me, Katherine.  Do you think I will ever give you up?  Not while I live.”

“No one will I marry.  With my father and my mother I will stay.”

“Yes, till you learn to love me as I love you, with the whole soul.”  He drew her close to his side, and bent tenderly to her face.

“No, you shall not kiss me, Neil,—­never again.  No right have you, Neil.”

“You are to be my wife, Katherine?”

“That I have not said.”

She drew herself from his embrace, and stood leaning against an elm-tree, watchful of Neil, full of wonder at the sudden warmth of his love, and half fearful of his influence over her.

“But you have known it, Katherine, ay, for many a year.  No words could make the troth-plight truer.  From this hour, mine and only mine.”

“Such things you shall not say.”

“I will say them before all the world.  Katherine, is it true that an English soldier is wearing a bow of your ribbon?  You must tell me.”

“What mean you?”

“I will make my meaning plain.  Is Captain Hyde wearing a bow of your orange ribbon?”

“Can I tell?”

“Yes.  Do not lie to me.”

“A lie I would not speak.”

“Did you give him one? an orange one?”

“Yes.  A bow of my St. Nicholas ribbon I gave him.”

“Why?”

“Me he loves, and him I love.”

“And he wears it at his breast?”

“On his breast I have seen it.  Neil, do not quarrel with him.  Do not look so angry.  I fear you.  My fault it is; all my fault, Neil.  Only to please me he wears it.”

“You have more St. Nicholas ribbons?”

“That is so.”

“Go and get me one.  Get a bow, Katherine, and give it to me.  I will wait here for it.”

“No, that I will not do.  How false, how wicked I would be, if two lovers my colours wore!”

“Katherine, I am in great earnest.  A bow of that ribbon I must have.  Get one for me.”

“My hands I would cut off first.”

“Well, then, I will cut my bow from Hyde’s breast.  I will, though I cut his heart out with it.”