"What COULD I do?" she said. "Why, when I was at Cambridge that week, I didn't dare to claim your time and thought. Why CAN'T one make oneself understood? Why, my one hope, all that time, was just for the minutes I got with you; and yet I thought it wasn't fair not to try to seem amused; then I saw you were vexed at something--vexed that I should want to talk to you--what a WRETCHED business!" "Never mind all that now, child," said Howard, "it's a perfect nightmare. Why can't one be simple? Why, indeed? and even now, I simply can't believe it--oh, the wretched hours when I thought you were drifting away from me; do men and women indeed miss their chances so? If I had but known! Yet, I must tell you this--when I first came to this spring here, I thought it held a beautiful secret for me--something which had been in my life from everlasting. It was so, and this was what it held for me." The afternoon sped swiftly away, and the shadow of the western downs fell across the pool. An immense and overpowering joy filled Howard's heart, and the silent world took part in his ecstasy. "You remember that first day?" said Maud. "I had felt that day as if some one was coming to me from a long way off drawing nearer. . . . I saw you drive up in the carriage, and I wondered if we should be friends." "Yes," said Howard, "it was you on the lawn--that was when I saw you first!" "And now we must go back and face the music," said Howard. "What do you think? How shall we make it all known? I shall tell Aunt Anne to-night. I shall be glad to do that, because there has fallen a veil between us. Don't forget, dear child, how unutterably wretched and intolerable I have been. She tried to help me out, but I was running with my head down on the wrong track. Oh, what a miserable fool I was! That comes of being so high-minded and superior. If you only knew how solemn I have been! Why couldn't I just speak?" "You might have spoken any time," said Maud. "Why, I would have walked barefoot to Dorchester and back to please you! It does seem horrible to think of our being apart all that time, out of such beautiful consideration--and you were my own, my very own all the time, every moment." "I will come and tell your father to-morrow," said Howard presently. "How will Master Jack take it? Will he call you Miss?" "He may call me what he likes," said Maud. "I shan't get off easily." "Well, we have an evening and a night and a morning for our secret," said Howard. "I wish it could be longer. I should like to go on for ever like this, no one knowing but you and me." "Do just as you like, my lord and master," said Maud. "I won't have you talk like that," said Howard; "you don't know what you give me. Was ever anyone in the world so happy before?" "There's one person who is as happy," said Maud; "you can't guess what I feel. Does it sound absurd to say that if you told me to stand still while you cut me into little bits, I should enjoy it?"