’And this,’ he said, ’is the side where my heart is. Honor, I’m very sorry I did not follow your advice. I am sorry now for many things. I want you to forgive me.’ ’I have nothing to forgive.’ ’Lean over me. I want to whisper. I don’t want the fellows to hear.’ She stooped with her face near his. Then he raised his uninjured arm, put it round her neck, and drew her cheek to his lips, and kissed her. ’Honor! dear Honor! I love no one! no one in the world but you! And I love you more than words can say.’ Did she kiss him? She did not know herself. A light, then a darkness, were before her eyes. What time passed then? A second or a century? She did not know. A sudden widening of the world to infinity, a loss of all limitations—time, space—an unconsciousness of distinction, joy, pain, day, night, a loss of identity—was it she herself, or another? Then a wakening as from a trance, with tingling veins, and dazed eyes, and whirling brain, and fluttering heart, and voice uncontrolled, as from the cottage door, down the steps, and from the well, up the lane came simultaneously the rabble of boys and men. ’Well, how is he?’ ’Have you got the coat off?’ ’Can he speak?’ ’Any bones broke?’ Honor could not answer the questions; she heard them, but had no voice wherewith to speak. ’Raise the gate again,’ said Piper. ’Sam, are you ready? Why are you behind? We must get on.’ ’Honor,’ said Larry in a low voice, ’walk by the side of me. Hold my hand.’ ’He is better,’ said one of the young men; ’he can speak. He knows Honor.’ ’Yes, he is better,’ she said, ’but he has his right arm broken, and he is much shaken and bruised. Let me walk beside him, I can stay the gate and ease him as you carry him over the ruts and stones.’ So she walked at his side with her hand in his. In a few minutes the party had arrived at the granite gates of Chimsworthy. ’Stay here,’ ordered Piper. ’Now, Honor Luxmore, will you go on up the avenue and tell the old gentleman? Us’ll come after with Master Larry in ten minutes.’ ’I will go,’ said Honor, disengaging her hand. ’How are you now?’ asked Piper, coming up to the young man. ’Better,’ he said, ’better than ever before.’ *CHAPTER XXVIII.* *A FIRST STEP.*