The sweet girl's interest in my welfare was not the merely friendly interest which she herself believed it to be.

And I said just now that I was "touched." Cant! Lies! I loved her more dearly than I had ever loved her yet.

There is the truth--stripped of poor prudery, and the mean fear of being called Vain! What I might have said to her, if the opportunity had offered itself, may be easily imagined.

Before I could open my lips, a man appeared on the path which led from the mill to the spring--the man whom Cristel had secretly suspected of a design to follow her.
I felt her hand trembling in my hand, and gave it a little encouraging squeeze.

"Let us judge him," I suggested, "by what he says and does, on finding us together." Without an attempt at concealment on his part, he advanced towards us briskly, smiling and waving his hand.
"What, Mr.Roylake, you have already found out the virtues of your wonderful spring, and you are drinking the water before breakfast! I have often done it myself when I was not too lazy to get up.