"I know what you mean," he whispered sadly, with his bright young face cast down. "I cannot think what can have made me such a fool. Only please to tell me one thing. Has there been any chap in front of me?" "How can I tell what you mean?" asked Grace; but her colour showed that she could guess. "I must not ask who it is, of course. Only say it's not the swell that drives the four bay horses." "I do not know any one that drives four bay horses. And now I think that I had better go. Only, as I cannot ever meet you any more, I must try to tell you that I like you very much, and never shall forget what I owe to you; and I hope you will very soon recover from this--this little disappointment; and my dear father, as soon as we return to England--for I must go to fetch him----" "Grace--oh, let me call you 'Grace' once or twice, it can't matter here in the middle of the wood--Grace, I was so taken up with myself, and full of my miserable folly, which of course I ought to have known better----" "I must not stop to hear any more. There is my hand--yes, of course you may kiss it, after all that you have done for me." "I am going to do a great deal more for you," cried Kit, quite carried away with the yielding kindness of lovely fingers. "For your sake I am going to injure and disgrace my own father--though the Lord knows the shame is of his own making. It is my father who has kept you here; and to-night he is going to carry you off. Miss Patch is only a tool of his. Your own father knows not a word about it. He believes you to be dead and buried. Your tombstone is set up at Beckley, and your father goes and cries over it." "But his letters--his letters from Demerara? Oh! my head swims round! Let me hold by this tree for a moment!" Kit threw his arm round her delicate waist to save her from falling; and away crept George, who had lurked behind a young birch-tree too far off to hear their words. "You must rouse up your courage," said Kit, with a yearning gaze at his sweet burden, yet taking no advantage of her. "Rouse up your courage, and I will do my best to save you from myself. It is very hard--it is cruelly cruel, and nobody will thank me!" "His letters from Demerara!" cried Grace, having scarcely heard a word he said. "How could he have written them? You must be wrong." "Of such letters I have never heard. I suppose they must have been forgeries. I give you my word that your father has been the whole of the time at Beckley, and a great deal too ill to go from home." "Too ill!--my father? Yes, of course--of course! How could he help being ill without me? And he thinks I am dead? Oh! he thinks that I am dead! I wonder that he could dare to be alive. But let me try to think a little."