‘Shall I take them for you to the Queen?’ said she, and her hand trembled as she extended it towards him.
He took the pretty hand in his own, and she did not withdraw it.
‘Mistress Carmichael,’ said he, ‘I am a plain man, and I hope an honest one. I have not so many friends that I can afford to lose any for lack of courage to ask an explanation. How have I offended you of late? Tell me as frankly as I ask you, and I will take care not to transgress again.’
Her bosom heaved, and her colour went and came.
‘Offended?’ she replied; ‘and me? oh, no! What have I done to make you think so?’
He was still very grave, and a shade paler than before, but his countenance was immovable, and indeed stern. It was a peculiarity of Walter Maxwell that, under strong excitement, his exterior became unusually cold and composed.
‘I have thought so for long,’ he resumed. ‘Perhaps it has distressed me more than you would think possible. I trust I have done my duty as thoroughly as if you and I had been friends; but I have felt that difficulties appeared greater, and hardships less endurable than if our differences had not existed. The breach has widened day by day; ere long, you and I will have learned to hate each other.’
‘Oh, no, no!’ she murmured, scarce above her breath, but she kept her head bent down, and the tears were dropping fast among the winter-roses in her basket.
He had never let go her hand; he folded it in both his own, and pressed it to his lips.
‘Mary Carmichael,’ said he, ‘since the day we first met in the forest of Chambord, I have wished to be worthy of you, and you alone. I am no woman-worshipper, no smooth-tongued silken gallant, and yet I think there are few things I could not do to please you; nothing, save my honour, I would not sacrifice for your sake.’
A gleam of intense pride and pleasure shone for an instant in her eyes; the next, her face contracted as if with pain, and she looked up scared and wild, through her tears.
‘You must not say so--you must not say so,’ she exclaimed, drawing her hand away hurriedly, and with a frightened, half-distracted air. ‘Let me go now--let me go; I hear the others coming.’
‘Is that your answer?’ said he, very lowly and distinctly, but with a pale face, and something in his voice that it was better not to trifle with.