First, he asked her to play at chess with him; and then, after spending a couple of hours, under the pretence of playing, but in reality gazing into her blue eyes, and talking all sorts of wild, enthusiastical, poetical romance, half earnest and half affected, he declared that his head ached, and asked her to read aloud to him; and when she did so, sitting without a thought of ill beside his pillow, while their fathers were conversing in a low tone over the hearth, and Durzil was absent making his preparations for the next day’s journey, he let his hand fall, as if unconsciously, on hers, and after a little while, emboldened by her unsuspicious calmness, imprisoned it between his fingers. It might have been that she was so much engrossed in reading, for it was Shakspeare’s sweet Rosalind that the boy had chosen for her subject, that she was not aware that her hand was clasped in his. It might have been, that, accustomed to its pressure, from his involuntary retention of it during his lethargic sleep on the preceding day, she let it pass as a matter of no consequence. It might have been, that almost unsuspected by herself, a feeling of interest and affection, which might easily be ripened into love, was already awakened in her bosom, for the high-spirited, handsome, fearless boy, who in some measure owed his life to her assistance. At all events, she made no effort to withdraw it, but let it lie in his, passive, indeed, and motionless, save for its quivering pulse, but warm and soft and sensitive. And the boy waxing bolder, and moved into earnestness by the charms of the position, ventured to press it once or twice, as she read some moving line, and murmured praises of the author’s beauties, and of the sweet, low voice that lent to those beauties a more thrilling loveliness, and still the fairy fingers were not withdrawn from his hold, though her eye met not his, nor any word of hers answered his whispered praises. At length a quick, strong step came suddenly to the door of the room, and almost before there was time for thought, the door was thrown open, and Durzil Olifaunt entered. Instantly Theresa started at the sound, and strove to withdraw her hand, while a deep blush of shame and agitation crimsoned her cheeks and brow, and even overspread her snowy neck and bosom. It was not, as that bold boy fancied at the time, in the vanity and insolence of his uncorrected heart, that she knew all the time, that she was allowing what it was wrong, and immodest, and unmaidenly to endure, and that now she was afraid and ashamed, not of the error, but of the detection.