There was a dreadful recklessness in her voice. She could not help it: she felt reckless at that moment. She felt that she was retaliating justly upon the man who had tricked her. She would have liked if he had suddenly appeared on the other side of the stile and looked on. She would have kissed her lover before his face. What could he have done to her? Did he really fancy that Pierce Winwood would allow him to interfere? If he did he was a fool. He did not know that it is part of a woman’s nature to be reckless--once in her life; and he became a little afraid of the way in which she was speaking to him. He did not know how she had been driven ahead by the thought that another man had tried to trick her into being true to him. She was having her retaliation. He did not object in the least to be a participator in it, though he knew nothing about it. He held her hands in his own and looked into her face. “You were right,” he whispered; “it is the best day of my life. And I thought that I came here by chance. You love me, don’t you? I wonder if you really do love me. Shall I awaken and find that this marvel of sunshine and summer has fled forever? Were you really thinking of me as I came up? It seems ridiculous to hope so much.” “I think I must have been thinking of you,” she said, “if I had not been thinking of you should I have felt so... Oh, I recollect now--I was not thinking of you--I was only thinking of the loveliness of the world--that was why I felt angry that he had bound me to him--if I never really hated him before I hated him then. You will not let me go back to him, will you? You must promise to save me from him.” She had caught him by the arm. All her recklessness had vanished. She was appealing to him as a child appeals to one for protection against a bogey man. He had his arms about her. “No one shall take you from me,” he said. “Who is it that you fear, my dearest?” She stared at him for some moments, and then burst into a laugh. “I forgot--I forgot,” she cried. “You never heard it. How was it possible for you to hear it?” Then she put down a hand to his that clasped her waist, and held it away from her. Her eyes were looking out over the whispering breadth of the wheat-field. The wood pigeons were still rising at intervals and curving downward with a glint of sunlight on their feathers. She rose from where she was sitting against the bank, and picked up her sunshade.