She looked up at him with a smile, as she finished; met his eyes, read the expression in them, stopped abruptly, and said, in a voice of consternation: ‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ Her face was covered with a flood of colour. For a moment she put her hand before it, as if to cover it, then dropped it again. ‘What must you think of me?’ she exclaimed, in a voice full of tears. ‘Pray forgive me, if you can!’ ‘Pray do not distress yourself,’ he rejoined, a curious flavour, half bitterness, half amusement, in his voice—‘I led up to it; I wanted to hear you confess it. I felt sure you were too natural not to feel so. You are quite right; you and yours have not stolen the place. You came by it honestly, and have a right to rejoice in it if you like.’ He made a step onwards, inwardly wondering a little why he _had_ led up to this topic. Nita’s face was downcast, as she said, in a deep tone of annoyance and vexation: ‘It does not matter. I am a little fool, I believe. After all my resolutions that I would not drop a syllable that could wound you while you were here—_idiot_ that I am!’ ‘Did you make such resolutions?’ asked Wellfield, suddenly stopping again, and bending his eyes beneath their frowning brows upon her. ‘Yes. Oh, don’t look so severe, Mr. Wellfield, or I shall have to go in. Indeed it was an oversight, my saying such a thing.’ ‘I wish you would not take it so to heart,’ he said, with a short laugh. ‘It is well that I should learn to grow accustomed to my position. You have given me the first lesson, that is all. Shall we go on?’ Nita answered nothing, but paced on beside him. Jerome was fully aware in his secret heart that his last speech was claptrap; but if it had the same effect upon Nita as if it had been fresh from the real well of pathos, what did it matter? There was a vague feeling present in his mind, that Nita seemed to take a good deal of interest in him—a feeling which gave him suddenly great interest in her. ‘You are very fond of the Abbey, then?’ he asked. ‘Yes—very.’ ‘Why so? What makes you like it so much? Stop! I am sure you need not give orders to the gardener this very moment. Take one other turn with me on the river walk. Why are you so devoted to the Abbey?’ ‘I can hardly tell,’ she answered, a little shyly. (Evidently she was dreadfully afraid of hurting him by any second remark like that one which had already, as it were, exploded like a conversational bombshell. To her he was still the lord of the soil, despite her love for the place, and her keen sense of joy in the possession of it. He saw the feeling in a moment, and it gratified him.) ‘I hardly know,’ repeated Nita; ‘it seems to have grown part of my life—it is so different from other places. It suits me. I was so glad when we came here.’ ‘And you knew when you came that you were the only child of your father, and you liked the idea of sometime reigning at the old place?’ pursued Jerome, tranquilly.