“Yes,” she responded, raising her white, troubled face to his while he bent and kissed her again on the lips.  “I know that I am yours, my own well-beloved; and, as yours, I will not fear.”

“That’s right!” he exclaimed, endeavouring to smile.  “Cheer up.  I don’t like to see you on this last day down-hearted and apprehensive like this.”

“I am not so without cause.”

“Then, what is the cause?” he demanded.  “Surely you can repose confidence in me?”

Again she was silent.  Above them the wind stirred the leaves, and through the high bracken a rabbit scuttled at their feet.  They were alone, and she stood again locked in her lover’s fond embrace.

“You have told me yourself that man Flockart is my enemy,” she said in a low voice.

“But what action of his can you fear?  Surely you should be forearmed against any evil he may be plotting.  Tell me the truth, and I will go myself to your father and denounce the fellow before his face!”

“Ah, no!” she cried, full of quick apprehension.  “Never think of doing that, Walter!”

“Why?  Am I not your friend?”

“Such a course would only bring his wrath down upon my head.  He would retaliate quickly, and I alone would suffer.”

“But, my dear Gabrielle,” he exclaimed, “you really speak in enigmas.  Whatever can you fear from a man who is known to be a blackguard—­whom I could now, at this very moment, expose in such a manner that he would never dare to set foot in Perthshire again?”

“Such a course would be most injudicious, I assure you.  His ruin would mean—­it would mean—­my—­own!”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Ah, because you do not know my secret—­you——­”

“Your secret!” the young man gasped, staring at her, yet still holding her trembling form in his strong arms.  “Why, what do you mean?  What secret?”

“I—­I cannot tell you!” she exclaimed in a hard, mechanical voice, looking straight before her.

“But you must,” he protested.

“I—­I asked you, Walter, to make me a promise,” she said, her voice broken by emotion—­“a promise that, for the sake of the love you bear for me, you will not believe that man, that you will disregard any allegation against me.”

“And I promise, on one condition, darling—­that you tell me in confidence what I, as your future husband, have a just right to know—­the nature of this secret of yours.”

“Ah, no!” she cried, unable longer to restrain her tears, and burying her pale, beautiful face upon his arm.  “I—­I was foolish to have spoken of it,” she sobbed brokenly:  “I ought to have kept it to myself.  It is—­it’s the one thing that I can never reveal to you—­to you of all men!”

CHAPTER XVII

DESCRIBES A FRENCHMAN’S VISIT

“Monsieur Goslin, Sir Henry,” Hill announced, entering his master’s room one morning a fortnight later, just as the blind man was about to descend to breakfast.  “He’s in the library, sir.”