"Oh, Sir Edward!" she said, in a calm, sweet tone, "I am glad to see you. You have finished your shooting early, it seems."
"Why, the sport was beginning to slacken," answered Sir Edward Digby. "I had not had a shot for the last half hour, and so thought it best to give it up."
"Well then, you shall take a walk with me," cried Zara, gaily. "I am just going down to a poor friend of ours, called Widow Clare, and you shall come too."
"What! notwithstanding all your sage and prudent apprehensions in regard to what people might say if we were seen alone together!" exclaimed Sir Edward Digby, with a smile.
"Oh! I don't mind that," answered Zara. "Great occasions, you know, Sir Edward, require decisive measures; and I assuredly want an escort through this terrible forest, to protect me from all the giants and enchanters it may contain."
Sir Edward Digby looked at his watch again, and saw that it wanted but two minutes to the half hour.
"Oh!" said Zara, affecting a look of pique, "if you have some important appointment, Sir Edward, it is another affair--only tell me if it be so?"
Sir Edward Digby took her hand in his: "I will tell you, dear lady," he replied, "if you will first tell me one thing, truly and sincerely--What brought you here?"
Zara trembled and coloured; for with the question put in so direct a shape, the agitation, which she had previously overcome, mastered her in turn, and she answered, "Don't, don't, or I shall cry."
"Well, then, tell me at least if I had anything to do with it?" asked the young baronet.
"Yes, you had!" replied Zara; "I can't tell a falsehood. But now, Sir Edward, don't, as most of you men would do, suppose that it's from any very tender interest in you, that I did this foolish thing. It was because I thought--I thought, if you were going to do what I imagined, it would be the very worst thing in the world for poor Edith."
"I shall only suppose that you are all that is kind and good," answered Digby--perhaps a little piqued at the indifference which she so studiously assumed; "and even if I thought, Miss Croyland, that you did take some interest in my poor self, depend upon it, I should not be inclined to go one step farther in the way of vanity than you yourself could wish. I am not altogether a coxcomb. But now tell me, how you were led to suspect anything?"