So, like many another man, I ran away, not knowing how to meet my fair adversary on equal grounds.

CHAPTER VIII.

Walking among the whispering leaves, the conclusion I came to was that I must take some precaution, or Coralie d’Aubergne would marry me whether I was willing or not.  A siren is a faint shadow compared with a beautiful woman resolved to win a man whether he wants winning or not.

Why not risk my fate and ask Agatha to be my wife?  There was a faint hope in my heart that she would not refuse me, yet she was so modest, so retiring, that though I had most perseveringly sought her favor since the first moment I had seen her, I could not tell whether she cared for me or not.

To judge by Coralie’s standard, she did not like me.  In all our conversation it half maddened me to see the lovely eyes I loved so dearly dropped shyly away from me.

It may not be a very elegant comparison, but she always reminded me of some shy, beautiful bird.  She had a bright, half-startled way of looking at me.  Several times, when I met her suddenly, I saw the lovely face flush and the little hands tremble.

Did she love me or did she not?  I could not tell.  Of whom should I take counsel?  There was a bird singing over me; I wondered if that sweet night-song was all of love.  Alas! that I had not been more into the world of women—­their ways and fashions were all mysteries to me.

“Faint heart never won fair lady,” says the old proverb, and it ran through my mind.  I resolved to try my fortune.  If she did not love me, why then, life held nothing more for me.  If I could not win her I would never ask the love of woman more, but live out my life with Clare.

Like many other anxious lovers, I lay awake all night, wondering what I should say to her, how I should woo her, in what words I should ask her to be my wife.  When day dawned I was still undecided, only that it was to be.

“You are going away early,” said Coralie, as I ordered my horse.  “Surely you will not be away all day, Sir Edgar?”

“I am going to Harden Manor, and cannot say when I shall return.  Do not wait dinner for me—­I may dine there.”

“It will be a long, dark day,” she said, with a sigh.  “Do not be late—­every hour will seem like two.”

She hovered round me, asking many questions, evidently seeking to know my business there.  When my horse was brought to the door, she came to me with a delicate spray of heliotrope.

“Let me fasten this in your coat, Sir Edgar.  No gentleman looks completely dressed without a flower.  You do not know what heliotrope means.  Men never—­or, at least, very seldom—­care for the sweetest of all languages—­the language of flowers.  What that heliotrope means, cousin, I say to you.”

It was not until some weeks afterward that, looking quite accidentally over an old book, I discovered the spray of heliotrope meant, “I love you.”