"I am not angry with you, Wat," she said, softly and slowly, "though I might be. Why will you let me fight this battle alone? Why must I have faith for both of us? Surely in time you will understand and believe. Hear me, true lad," she put her hands a little farther over his shoulders and moved an inch nearer him; "you make me say things that shame me. But what can I do? I only tell you what I would be proud to tell all the world, if it stood about us now as it shall stand on the great Day of Judgment. I would rather drink the drop and bite the crust by the way-side with you, Wat Gordon; rather be an outcast woman among the godless gypsy-folk with you--aye, without either matron's ring to clasp my finger or maiden's snood to bind my hair--than be a king's wife and sit on a throne with princesses about me for my tire-women." She had brought her face nearer to his as she spoke, white and drawn with her love and its expression. Now when she had finished she held him for a moment fixed with her eyes, as it were nailing the truth she had spoken to his very soul. Then swiftly changing her mood, she dropped her arms from his shoulders and moved away along the beach. Wat hastened after her and walked beside her, watching her. He strove more than once to take her hand, but she kept it almost petulantly away from him. The tears were running down her cheeks silently and steadily. Her underlip was quivering. The girl who had been brave for two, now shook like a leaf. They came to the corner of the inland cliff of Fiara, which had gradually withdrawn itself farther and farther up the beach, as the tide-race swept more and more sand along the northern front of the inland. A rowan-tree grew out of a cleft. Its trunk projected some feet horizontally before it turned upward. Kate leaned against it and buried her face in her hands. Wat stood close beside her, longing with all his nature to touch her, to comfort her; but something held him back. He felt within him that caressing was not her mood. "Hearken, sweet love," he said, beseechingly, clasping his hands over each other in an agony of helpless desire; "I also have something to say to you." "Oh, you should not have done it," she said, looking at him through her streaming tears; "you ought not to have let me say it. You should have believed without needing me to tell you. But now I have told you, I shall never be my own again; and some day you will think that I have been too fond, too sudden--" "Kate," said Wat, all himself again at her words, and coming masterfully forward to take her by the wrists. He knelt on one knee before her, holding her in his turn, almost paining her by the intensity of his grasp. "Kate, you shall listen to me. You blame me wrongly; I have not indeed, to-day, told you of _my_ faith, of _my_ devotion, of the certainty of _my_ standing firm through all the darkness that is to come. And I will tell you why." "Yes," said the girl, a little breathlessly; "tell me why."