'Yes,' he says reproachfully, 'you were very conscientious. It would have been kinder to be a little dishonest. You might have kept back the one that we had been reading out of. I had a faint hope that you might have kept it back.' 'I did think of it,' she answers, under her breath. 'The mark is in it still!' he cries joyfully. 'Shall we take it up again where we left off? Where shall we sit? Under the Judas-tree?' Her flickering smile dies into gravity. 'You are getting on very fast,' she says tremulously. 'Are you sure that it is not too fast?' They have passed St. Mary's; noble porch and soaring spire lie behind them. 'Is it worth while your coming,' she continues, with evident difficulty, and with a quiver she cannot master in her low voice, 'when at any moment you may be obliged to go away again?' 'Why should I be obliged to go away again?' Her voice has sunk to a key that is almost inaudible. 'I am only judging of the future by the past.' He groans. The past! Is he never to escape from the past? never to hear the last of it? Is it always to dog him to his dying day? 'Are you sure?' she pursues, lifting--though, as he sees, with untold pain--the searching honesty of her eyes to his, while a fierce red spot burns on each of her cheeks, 'that you are not promising more than you can perform when you talk of coming? Are you sure that--you--are free--to come? You know--you were--not free to stay.' His face has caught a reflection of the crimson dyeing hers, but his look shows no sign of blenching. 'I _am_ free,' he answers slowly and emphatically. 'Why do you look as if you did not believe me? Cannot you trust me?' At his words a shadow passes over her face. Is not Freddy Ducane always inviting her to trust him? She has grown to hate the phrase. 'I am not good at trusting people,' she says plaintively, with a slight shiver. 'I do not like it.' They have reached the door of the Mitre. 'Over already!' cries Talbot, in a voice of passionate revolt and discontent; 'my own good hour gone before I had well laid hold of it? Who could believe it? Then at least,' speaking very rapidly, 'say something to me--something else--something better! Whether you trust me or not--God knows why you should not--do not let me go away with that for----' 'Peggy dear,' interrupts a soft and rather melancholy voice from an upper window above the door--and yet not very much higher than they, so low and unpretending is the old and famous inn in comparison with its staring towering competitors--'we would not for worlds begin breakfast without you; but I am afraid that Prue is growing rather faint.' CHAPTER XXV