“You meant to?” he said slowly; “but you haven’t—­you couldn’t?”

“I could, six times over if I liked.”

“But you have not.”

“No.  I was a fool, and you were—­Oh, I can’t explain; you would never understand, and it does not matter.  The thing that matters is that I came here to get your blue daffodil.”

“You must have needed money very greatly,” he said in a puzzled, pitying voice.

“I did, I wanted it desperately, but that does not matter either—­I came here to steal; I go away because I am found out to have deceived and to have behaved improperly—­I want you to understand that.”

“I do not understand,” he answered; “I understand nothing but that you are you, and—­and I love you.”

“You don’t!” she cried in sharp protest.  “You do not, and you cannot!  You think you love what you think I am.  But I am not that; it is all quite different; when you, know, when you realise, you will see it.”

“I realise now,” he answered; “it is still the light, only sometimes dim.”

“Dim!” she repeated, “it has gone out!”

“And if it has, what then?  If you are all you say you are, and all they say you are, and many worse things besides, what then?  It makes no difference.”

He spoke with the curious quietness with which he always spoke of what he was quite sure.  But she drew back against the hedge, clasping her hands together, her calmness all gone.  “Oh, what have I done!  What have I done!” she said, overcome with pity and remorse.

He drew a step nearer, misinterpreting the emotion.  “I will take care of you,” he said.  “Will you not let me take care of you?”

She looked up, and though her eyes were full of tears he might have read his answer there, in her recovered calmness, in the very gentleness of her manner.  “You cannot,” she said sadly; “you couldn’t possibly do it.  Don’t you see that it is impossible?  Your parents, the people—­”

“That is of no importance,” he answered; “my parents would very soon see you in your true light, and for the rest—­what does it matter?  If you will marry me I—­”

“But Joost, I can’t!  Don’t you feel yourself that I can’t?  We are not only of two nations—­that is nothing—­but we are almost of two races; we are night and day, oil and water, black and white.  It would never do; we should be on the outskirts of each other’s lives, you would never know mine, and though I might know yours, I could never really enter in.”

“That is nothing,” he said, “if you love.”

“It is everything,” she answered, “if two people do not talk the same language, soul language, I mean.”

“They will learn it if they love—­but you do not?  Is it that, tell me.  Ah, yes, you do, a little, little bit!  Only a little, so that you hardly know it, but it is enough—­if you have the least to give that would do; I would do all the rest; I would love you; I would stand between you and the whole world; in time it would come, in time you would care!”