She raised her eyes for a moment but did not look at him; they were
fixed dreamily on the great hills in the distance, then drooped again,
and her brows came together, her lips straightened with a still more
marked expression of trouble, doubt, and wonder.

"I love you," he said, with the deep note of a man's passion in his
voice. "I didn't mean to tell you, to speak--I didn't know until just
now how it was with me: you see I am telling you everything, the whole
truth! You will listen to me?"

For she had made a movement of turning away, a slow, heavy gesture as
if she were encumbered by chains, as if she were under some spell from
which she could not wake.

"I will tell you everything, at the risk of making you angry, at the
risk of your--sending me away."

He paused for a moment, as if he were choosing his words with a care
that sprang from his fear lest he should indeed rouse her anger
and--lose her.

"The first day I saw you--you remember?"

As if she could forget! She knew as he asked the question that no
trifling detail of that first meeting was forgotten, that every word
was engraven on her memory.

"When I saw you riding down the hill, I thought I had never seen any
girl so beautiful, so lovely--"