“More fully than——­”

“Then be content,” she said hastily, “and pull me no more lugubrious faces to fright me.  Lord!  What a vexing paradox is this young man who sits and glowers and gnaws his lips in the very moment of his victory, while I, his victim, tranquil and happy in defeat, sit calmly telling my thoughts like holy beads to salve my new-born soul.  Ai-me!  There are many things yet to be learned in this mad world of men.”

We leaned over the parapet, shoulder to shoulder, looking down upon the river.  The rain had ceased, but the sun gleamed only at intervals, and briefly.

After a moment she turned and looked at me with her beautiful and candid eyes—­ the most honest eyes I ever looked upon.

“Euan,” she said in a quiet voice, “I know how hard it is for us to remain silent in the first flush of what has so sweetly happened to us both.  I know how natural it is for you to speak of it and for me to listen.  But if I were to listen, now, and when one dear word of yours had followed another, and the next another still; and when our hands had met, and then our lips—­ alas, dear lad, I had become so wholly yours, and you had so wholly filled my mind and heart that—­ I do not know, but l deeply fear—­ something of my virgin resolution might relax.  The inflexible will—­ the undeviating obstinacy with which I have pursued my quest as far as this forest place, might falter, be swerved, perhaps, by this new and other passion—­ for I am as yet ignorant of its force and possibilities.  I would not have it master me until I am free to yield.  And that freedom can come happily and honourably to me only when I set my foot in Catharines-town.  Do you understand me, Euan?”

“Yes.”

“Then—­ we will not speak of love.  Or even let the language of our eyes trouble each other with all we may not say and venture....  You will not kiss me, will you?  Before I ask it of you?”

“No.”

“Under no provocation?  Will you—­ even if I should ask it?”

“No.”

“I will tell you why, Euan.  I have promised myself—­ it is odd, too, for I first thought of it the day I first laid eyes on you.  I said to myself that, as God had kept me pure in spite of all—­ I should wish that the first one ever to touch my lips should be my mother.  And I made that vow—­ having no doubt of keeping it—­ until I saw you again——­”

“When?”

“When you came to me in Westchester before the storm.”

“Then!” I exclaimed, amazed.

“Is it not strange, Euan?  I know not how it was with me or why, all suddenly, I seemed to know—­ seemed to catch a sudden glimmer of my destiny—­ a brief, confusing gleam.  And only seemed to fear and hate you—­ yet, it was not hate or fear, either....  And when I came to you in the rain—­ there at the stable shed—­ and when you followed, and gave your ring—­ such hell and heaven as awakened in my heart you could not fathom—­ nor could I—­ nor can I yet understand....  Do you think I loved you even then?  Not knowing that I loved you?”