’Did you think it unkind of me not to come to nurse you.  I must tell you, to defend myself.  It was the Countess, Evan.  She is offended with me—­very justly, I dare say.  She would not let me come.  What could I do?  I had no claim to come.’

Rose was not aware of the import of her speech.  Evan, though he felt more in it, and had some secret nerves set tingling and dancing, was not to be moved from his demand.

‘Do you intend to withhold it, Rose?’

‘Withhold what, Evan?  Anything that you wish for is yours.’

‘The handkerchief.  Is not that mine?’

Rose faltered a word.  Why did he ask for it?  Because he asked for nothing else, and wanted no other thing save that.

Why did she hesitate?  Because it was so poor a gift, and so unworthy of him.

And why did he insist?  Because in honour she was bound to surrender it.

And why did she hesitate still?  Let her answer.

’Oh, Evan!  I would give you anything but that; and if you are going away, I should beg so much to keep it.’

He must have been in a singular state not to see her heart in the refusal, as was she not to see his in the request.  But Love is blindest just when the bandage is being removed from his forehead.

’Then you will not give it me, Rose?  Do you think I shall go about boasting “This is Miss Jocelyn’s handkerchief, and I, poor as I am, have won it"?’

The taunt struck aslant in Rose’s breast with a peculiar sting.  She stood up.

‘I will give it you, Evan.’

Turning from him she drew it forth, and handed it to him hurriedly.  It was warm.  It was stained with his blood.  He guessed where it had been nestling, and, now, as if by revelation, he saw that large sole star in the bosom of his darling, and was blinded by it and lost his senses.

‘Rose! beloved!’

Like the flower of his nightly phantasy bending over the stream, he looked and saw in her sweet face the living wonders that encircled his image; she murmuring:  ‘No, you must hate me.’

’I love you, Rose, and dare to say it—­and it ’s unpardonable.  Can you forgive me?’

She raised her face to him.

‘Forgive you for loving me?’ she said.

Holy to them grew the stillness:  the ripple suffused in golden moonlight:  the dark edges of the leaves against superlative brightness.  Not a chirp was heard, nor anything save the cool and endless carol of the happy waters, whose voices are the spirits of silence.  Nature seemed consenting that their hands should be joined, their eyes intermingling.  And when Evan, with a lover’s craving, wished her lips to say what her eyes said so well, Rose drew his fingers up, and, with an arch smile and a blush, kissed them.  The simple act set his heart thumping, and from the look of love, she saw an expression of pain pass through him.  Her fealty—­her guileless, fearless truth—­which the kissing of his hand brought vividly before him, conjured its contrast as well in this that was hidden from her, or but half suspected.  Did she know—­know and love him still?  He thought it might be:  but that fell dead on her asking: