"Oh, because I didn't think it was possible that you would care anything for me. You see I'm only a big, rough fellow; I'm not even clever, or anything of that kind, but I----" She slipped one hand from his grasp and laid it quickly on his lips. "Hush! you are the best fellow in the world," she said. "I think I've always seemed to turn to you and think of you most naturally when I wanted help or consolation; in the dullest and the weariest hours I think you've seemed to smile at me and make me stronger. Oh, are you sure you love me?" She laid the hand that had touched his lips upon his shoulder and looked up into his eyes; her lips were quivering. "Dear," he said, "I'm quite sure; I love you with all my heart and soul. I know I'm young, but I've never seemed to think about anybody else; there has never been any one else. It's always been little 'Linda in the garden; I've always felt your arms about my neck, just as you put them when we were children." She slipped them round his neck now. "See, they are there again," she whispered. "But, oh, are you sure, _quite_ sure, that you will never change; that you will love me always?" "Always," he replied simply. "I couldn't change." He bent his head and kissed her; and she clung to him, sighing a little and glancing behind her at the shadows among the trees. "You're frightened, dear," he said. "What is it?" "No, not frightened. Only this place weighs upon me a little, and the years have seemed so long while I have been waiting. How good you are to me!" "I'll try to be, dear love," he said. "I'll bring such sunshine into your life, it shall be such a time of happy holidays that you shall forget all the weariness, all the waiting; I'll make you forget it." "Yes," she said, looking round the garden again, "yes, I'll try to forget it--hark! what was that?" She drew away from him suddenly and stood with her hands clasped on her breast, looking toward the gate they had left. A faint light shone beyond it in the road, but all was still and quiet. "I hear nothing," said Comethup. She stood listening for a moment, and then laughed and came back to him. "I thought I heard some one come into the garden," she said with a smile. "But it was only fancy. When one has wandered long in a desolate place like this, and has had no companion but one's own thoughts, one is full of fears and fancies." She threw her arms suddenly about him, and hid her face upon his breast. "Take me away soon, dear," she whispered; "let me forget everything. You don't know, can't guess, how bitterly, bitterly tired I am of it all." He soothed her with gentle words, and presently led her toward the house. Beneath the little balcony she stopped and put her hands upon his breast and thrust him gently away. "Don't come in," she whispered. "I am very tired, and shall go straight to my room. I'll see you to-morrow, and many other to-morrows," she added, smiling.