He stood up awkwardly, and his face was dyed crimson, with a shame the more awful because it was wholly inarticulate. His first words left his lips before he had time to consider them. "Forgive me. I ought not to have come." She gazed at him pitifully, her trouble growing. "Ought not to have come? Oh, David, why? I--I thought you were--my brother." She was overswept with a sudden consciousness--much like that which had just overtaken the young man. After all, what was the link that bound them? A few hours of common danger, of frantic flight? She felt curiously friendless, and as though she had lived these past weeks under a comforting delusion. "Why ought you not to have come?" He said, brokenly, "I have no right." Then, with passion, "I have no right, have I? You are happy, and among kind people of your own class. You have no need of a ruffian like me." He turned away his face, lest she should see the working of his features, which he could not control. But Rona, with woman's swiftness of apprehension, had now the key to his unexpected mood. "David," she said, reproachfully, "are you jealous? Did you think I had forgotten you? How silly of you! You--you can't have a very high opinion of me." She took his hand, in a steadfast, trustful grasp. She sat down upon the bench, and with a gentle pull drew him to sit by her. "Have I deserved it? Am I ungrateful?" she asked, wistfully. He held on to the hand as if he had been drowning. Its warm contact sent comfort thrilling along his veins. "Why should you have anything to do with me? Nobody else ever wanted me, or cared what became of me," he stammered, incoherently. She lifted to his her shadowy eyes, full of understanding. "Perhaps you have not saved other people's lives at the risk of your own," she sweetly said. "Then you do feel--you do consider that there is a kind of link between us," he faltered. "You don't wish me to resign you entirely? Oh--let us have no doubt about it! I haven't much heart for life, but if I thought you would not forget me it would make such a difference--such a difference----" She broke in, "Forget you? Are you going away, then?" He held his breath, for there was dismay in her clear tones. All the emotions that in his wild youth had never been called forth till now, woke to life and filled him with an ecstasy which made his heart pound, and his breath pant, and the currents of his being flow together till his head swam. "You care?" he gasped. "It matters to you whether I go or stay?" "Matters? Oh, David! how can you?" She turned to him impulsively. His arms went round her; and in a moment--exalted, unlooked for, sweet with a sweetness unbelievable--her head, with all its tumbled curls, was on his shoulder, and he was holding her close, close, as though again she was striving to hurl herself into eternity. "Rona," he said at last. "Rona, I ought not to let you. I am not a fit man for you to love!"