"Who?" he echoed gently, as she paused, and his face was bent very near to hers, to hear her answer. "Who--care for each other," she whispered confusedly. "I don't think--you ought to make me say all the--difficult things." "Is it so difficult to say you care for me," he answered, with a low laugh of triumphant gladness. "I have got dozens of patients waiting downstairs for me, but I don't want to do anything except go on telling you how much I care for you, so much that I could not stay in England, and not tell you the truth." "And why didn't you tell me?" she said reproachfully, lifting her head to look again into his radiant face. "Because--your rank, and money, and surroundings--oh! everything about you, put you far out of my reach," he answered, with a sudden return to his old abruptness. "Even now I have not the smallest right to take advantage of the wonderful thing you have done to-day. What will your people say? What will the world say? What----" "Need you and I mind what the rest of mankind thinks, or says?" she answered, a little flash of defiance in her eyes. "Perhaps in coming here to-day I have been unwomanly and horrible; and yet, I had to come, because I knew that happiness is too big a thing to be sacrificed to pride, or to other people's opinions." "And--this is your happiness?" His voice was strangely softened. "Do you really mean me to know that you could be happy with me, with a rough sort of fellow like me?" "With a rough sort of fellow like you," she answered, laughing, a tender mockery in her words. "I can't be happy without you, and--I came to-day, to tell you so!" CHAPTER XXIII. "THE KING OF MY KINGDOM."