“I am sure you are the soul of honor,” said Rob, “but it is better you should know the circumstances. Don’t think she had come out to meet me. She had been driven out by despair about her father, and I was in the wood by chance-- I declare to you, by chance. I might have gone there to see the light in her window, that was all. But she did not come with any idea of meeting me.” “This is quite unnecessary,” said Randal; “I expressed no opinion, and have no right to form one. I didn’t want to see, and I don’t want to know--” “I perceive, however,” said Rob, “that you do not approve of me, and won’t approve of me; that you think I had no right to do what I have done, to speak to Mar--” “Hold your tongue,” said Randal, savagely; “what do you mean by bringing in a lady’s name?” Rob blushed to his very shoes; that he should have done a thing which evidently some private rule in that troublesome unwritten code of a gentleman, which it was so difficult to master in all its details, forbade, was worse to him than a crime. The annoyance with which he felt this took away his resentment at Randal’s tone. “Of course you are right,” he said; “I made a mistake; but, Mr. Burnside, you must not judge us too harshly. We have been thrown in each other’s way all day long, and almost every day. They have allowed us to be together so much, that we were encouraged to go a little farther. And she was very unhappy,” he added, with a little tremor in his voice; “not to console her was beyond the strength of man.” How Randal would have liked to pitch him over the hedge-row into a flourishing bed of nettles which he knew to be thereabout! But he restrained himself, and made a stiff bow instead. “This is very interesting,” he said, “no doubt; but I fail to see what I have to do with it. It was not my fault that my coming was at so indiscreet a moment.” “Then I may ask you not to betray us,” said Rob; “the circumstances are peculiar, as you will easily perceive. I should not wish--” “Really this is doubly unnecessary,” said Randal, angrily; “I am not a gossip, nor would it occur to me to betray any one. Is not this enough?” “I should have liked to take you into my confidence,” said Rob, “to ask your advice--”