"Oh, hang it all," said Temple. "Look here, Miss Desmond. I came away from Paris because I didn't know what was the matter with me. I didn't know who it was I really cared about. And before I'd been here one single day, I knew. And then I met you. And I haven't said a word, because you're here alone--and besides I wanted you to get used to talking to me and all that. And now you say I don't care. No, confound it all, it's too much! I wanted to ask you to marry me. And I'd have waited any length of time till there was a chance for me." He had almost turned his back on her, and leaning his chin on his elbow was looking out over the tree-tops far below. "And now you've gone and rushed me into asking you _now_, when I know there isn't the least chance for me,--and anyhow I ought to have held my tongue! And now it's all no good, and it's your fault. Why did you say I didn't care?" "You knew it was coming," Betty told herself, "when he asked if he might come to Long Barton to see you. You knew it. You might have stopped it. And you didn't. And now what are you going to do?" What she did was to lean back to reach another fern--to pluck and smooth its fronds. "Are you very angry?" asked Temple forlornly. "No," said Betty; "how could I be? But I wish you hadn't. It's spoiled everything." "Do you think I don't know all that?" "I wish I could," said Betty very sincerely, "but--" "Of course," he said bitterly. "I knew that." "He doesn't care about me," said Betty: "he's engaged to someone else." "And you care very much?" He kept his face turned away. "I don't know," said Betty; "sometimes I think I'm getting not to care at all." "Then--look here: may I ask you again some time, and we'll go on just like we have been?" "No," said Betty. "I'm going back to England at the end of the week. Besides, you aren't quite sure it's me you care for.--At least you weren't when you came away from Paris. How can you be sure you're sure now?" He turned and looked at her. "I beg your pardon," she said instantly. "I think I didn't understand. Let's go back now, shall we?" "For Heaven's sake," he said, "don't let this break up everything! Don't avoid me in the little time that's left. I won't talk about it any more--I won't worry you--" "Don't be silly," she said, and she smiled at him a little sadly; "you talk as though I didn't know you." CHAPTER XXVI. THE MIRACLE. It seemed quite dark down in the forest--or rather, it seemed, after the full good light that lay upon the summit of the rocks, like the gray dream-twilight under the eyelids of one who dozes in face of a dying fire. "Don't let's go straight back to Grez," said Betty when the pony was harnessed, "let's go on to Fontainebleau and have dinner and drive back by moonlight. Don't you think it would be fun? We've never done that." "Thank you," he said. "You _are_ good."