Here the two walked at morn and even, discussing, among other things, their loves, their former happenings, the strange ways of Providence: most of all their future, which, indeed, looked dark enough at the present, but which, nevertheless, shone for them with a rosy glow of hope and youth. There are no aspirants more sure of success than the young who, strong in the permanence of mutual affection, take hands and look towards the rising sun. All happens to those who know how to wait, especially if they have the necessary time before them. If they be young, the multitude of the coming years beckons them onward, and so their hearts be true and worthy, the very stars in their courses will fight for them. The hatreds and prejudices which oppose them lose their edge; their opponents, being of those that go down the slope to the dark archway of death, pass away within and are seen no more. But the young true-lovers remain. And lo! in a moment there is nothing before them but the plain way to walk in--the sweetness of a morning still young, a morning without clouds, the sweeter for the night and the long and weary way they have come together, hand in loving hand. "Kate," said Wat, "tell me when you first knew that you loved me." They were walking on the sand, across which the evening shadows were beginning to lengthen over the intricate maze of ripple-marks, and when each whorled worm-casting was gathering a little pool of blue shadow on its eastern side. The girl clasped her hands behind her back and gazed abstractedly away to the sunsetting, her shapely head turned a little aside as though she were listening to the voice of her own heart and hearing its answer too keenly to dare give it vent in words. "I think," said she, at last, very slowly--"I think I began to love you on the night when I saw you first, after I had come across the seas to Holland." "What!" cried Lochinvar, astonished at her answer; "but then you were more hard and cruel to me than ever--would not even hear me speak, and sent me away unsatisfied and most unhappy." Kate gave Wat a glance which said for a sufficient answer, had he possessed the wit to read it: "I was a woman, and so afraid of my own heart--you a man, and therefore could not help revealing yours." "It was then," she answered, aloud, "that I first felt in my own breast the danger of loving you. That made me afraid--yes, much afraid." "And why were you afraid, dear love?" Wat questioned, softly. "Because in love a woman has to think for herself, and for him who loves her, also. She sees further on. Difficulties loom larger to her. They close in upon her soul and fright her. Then, also, she has to watch within, lest--lest--" Here the girl stopped and gazed away pensively to the north. She did not finish her sentence. "Lest what, Kate?" urged Wat, softly, eager for the ending of her confession, for the revelation of the maiden's heart was sweet to him.