tell you—I knew I had no right to tell you this; but my feelings were too strong for me just now. Will you forgive me, Hilda, that I, who dare not ask you to be my wife, have dared to tell you of my love? Can you forgive me?"
"There is nothing to forgive," she answered gently, looking at him with tear-dimmed eyes.
She was very pale, and her lips trembled faintly as she spoke. In her inmost heart she was exulting at the knowledge of his love. It was as if she had drunk a deep draught of the strong wine of life. In the rapture of knowing herself beloved she had no room for any other consideration. His love might be foolish, vain, unprofitable, fatal even. For the moment she could not measure the consequences, or look into the future. She cared only for the fact that Bothwell Grahame loved her. That love which she had given to him in secret, in all maiden modesty, purest, most ethereal sentiment of which woman's heart is capable, had not been lavished upon a blind and dumb idol, upon a god of wood and stone.
They walked on for a few minutes in silence, Bothwell still holding Hilda's hand, but saying never a word. He had said too much already, since he dared say no more. He had told his secret, and had entreated to be forgiven. And now he came to a dead stop. Fate had walled him round with difficulties, had set a barrier before his steps: Fate or his only folly, that easy yielding to temptation which a man prefers to think of afterwards as fatality.
The thud of a horse's hoofs upon the grass on the other side of the hedge startled Bothwell from his reverie, and Hilda from her beatitude. They looked up, and saw Edward Heathcote cantering towards them on his powerful black. Mr. Heathcote was renowned for his hunters. He never counted the cost of a good horse; and he never had been known to buy a bad one. He was a man who could pick out a horse in a field a quarter of a mile off, ragged and rough and unshorn, altogether out of condition, long mane and neglected tail, and could distinguish the quality of the animal to a shade. He had made many of the hunters he rode, and was not afraid to tackle the most difficult subject. He loved horses, and they loved him. This was a subject upon which he and Bothwell sympathised; and it had been a link between them hitherto. Nothing had been more friendly than their intercourse until the last few weeks, during which time Mr. Heathcote had carefully avoided Penmorval and Bothwell Grahame.
He rode through a gap in the hedge, acknowledged Bothwell's presence with a nod that was barely courteous, and then turned to his sister.
"You had better hurry home, Hilda, if you mean to be in time for dinner," he said.
