“Kilmeny,” he said, seriously, “I am going to ask you to do something for me.  I want you to take me home with you and introduce me to your uncle and aunt.”

She lifted her head and stared at him incredulously, as if he had asked her to do something wildly impossible.  Understanding from his grave face that he meant what he said, a look of dismay dawned in her eyes.  She shook her head almost violently and seemed to be making a passionate, instinctive effort to speak.  Then she caught up her pencil and wrote with feverish haste: 

“I cannot do that.  Do not ask me to.  You do not understand.  They would be very angry.  They do not want to see any one coming to the house.  And they would never let me come here again.  Oh, you do not mean it?”

He pitied her for the pain and bewilderment in her eyes; but he took her slender hands in his and said firmly,

“Yes, Kilmeny, I do mean it.  It is not quite right for us to be meeting each other here as we have been doing, without the knowledge and consent of your friends.  You cannot now understand this, but—­believe me—­it is so.”

She looked questioningly, pityingly into his eyes.  What she read there seemed to convince her, for she turned very pale and an expression of hopelessness came into her face.  Releasing her hands, she wrote slowly,

“If you say it is wrong I must believe it.  I did not know anything so pleasant could be wrong.  But if it is wrong we must not meet here any more.  Mother told me I must never do anything that was wrong.  But I did not know this was wrong.”

“It was not wrong for you, Kilmeny.  But it was a little wrong for me, because I knew better—­or rather, should have known better.  I didn’t stop to think, as the children say.  Some day you will understand fully.  Now, you will take me to your uncle and aunt, and after I have said to them what I want to say it will be all right for us to meet here or anywhere.”

She shook her head.

“No,” she wrote, “Uncle Thomas and Aunt Janet will tell you to go away and never come back.  And they will never let me come here any more.  Since it is not right to meet you I will not come, but it is no use to think of going to them.  I did not tell them about you because I knew that they would forbid me to see you, but I am sorry, since it is so wrong.”

“You must take me to them,” said Eric firmly.  “I am quite sure that things will not be as you fear when they hear what I have to say.”

Uncomforted, she wrote forlornly,

“I must do it, since you insist, but I am sure it will be no use.  I cannot take you to-night because they are away.  They went to the store at Radnor.  But I will take you to-morrow night; and after that I shall not see you any more.”

Two great tears brimmed over in her big blue eyes and splashed down on her slate.  Her lips quivered like a hurt child’s.  Eric put his arm impulsively about her and drew her head down upon his shoulder.  As she cried there, softly, miserably, he pressed his lips to the silky black hair with its coronal of rosebuds.  He did not see two burning eyes which were looking at him over the old fence behind him with hatred and mad passion blazing in their depths.  Neil Gordon was crouched there, with clenched hands and heaving breast, watching them.