The rain had ceased, but the sun gleamed only at intervals, and briefly.
After a moment she turned and looked at me with her beautiful and candid eyes--the most honest eyes I ever looked upon.
"Euan," she said in a quiet voice, "I know how hard it is for us to remain silent in the first flush of what has so sweetly happened to us both.

I know how natural it is for you to speak of it and for me to listen.

But if I were to listen, now, and when one dear word of yours had followed another, and the next another still; and when our hands had met, and then our lips--alas, dear lad, I had become so wholly yours, and you had so wholly filled my mind and heart that--I do not know, but I deeply fear--something of my virgin resolution might relax.
The inflexible will--the undeviating obstinacy with which I have pursued my quest as far as this forest place, might falter, be swerved, perhaps, by this new and other passion--for I am as yet ignorant of its force and possibilities.

I would not have it master me until I am free to yield.

And that freedom can come happily and honourably to me only when I set my foot in Catharines-town.