Oh, it was heaven, Euan! I would you might come also." "I can walk as far as the pool with you, at all events," said I.
"Wonderful! And will you ?" "Do I ever await asking to follow you anywhere ?" said I sentimentally.
But she only laughed at me and led the way across the dreary strip of clearing, moving with a swift confidence in her knowledge of the place, which imitating, I ran foul of a charred stump, and she heard what I said.
"Poor lad!" she exclaimed contritely, slipping her hand into mine.

"I should have guided you.

Does it pain you ?" "Not much." Our hands were clasped, and she pressed mine with all the sweet freedom of a comradeship which means nothing deeper.

For I now had learned from her own lips, sadly enough, how it was with her--how she regarded our friendship.

It was to her a deep and living thing--a noble emotion, not a passion--a belief founded on gratitude and reason, not a confused, blind longing and delight possessing every waking moment, ever creating for itself a thousand tender dreams or fanciful and grotesque apprehensions.
Clear-headed so far, reasonable in her affection, gay or tender as the mood happened, convinced that what I declared to be my love for her was but a boy's exaggeration for the same sentiments she entertained toward me, how could she have rightly understood the symptoms of this amazing malady that possessed me--these reasonless extremes of ardour, of dejection, of a happiness so keen and thrilling that it pained sometimes, and even at moments seemed to make me almost drunk.
Nor did I myself entirely comprehend what ailed me, never having been able to imagine myself in love, or ever dreamed that I possessed the capacity for such a violent devotion to any woman.