I expect Robert every moment." "I would rather speak with you alone," answered Raffles Haw quietly.
"Pray sit down, for I wanted to have a little chat with you." Laura resumed her seat with a flush upon her cheeks and a quickening of the breath.

She turned her face away and gazed into the fire; but there was a sparkle in her eyes which was not caught from the leaping flames.
"Do you remember the first time that we met, Miss McIntyre ?" he asked, standing on the rug and looking down at her dark hair, and the beautifully feminine curve of her ivory neck.
"As if it were yesterday," she answered in her sweet mellow tones.
"Then you must also remember the wild words that I said when we parted.

It was very foolish of me.

I am sure that I am most sorry if I frightened or disturbed you, but I have been a very solitary man for a long time, and I have dropped into a bad habit of thinking aloud.

Your voice, your face, your manner, were all so like my ideal of a true woman, loving, faithful, and sympathetic, that I could not help wondering whether, if I were a poor man, I might ever hope to win the affection of such a one." "Your good opinion, Mr.Raffles Haw, is very dear to me," said Laura.
"I assure you that I was not frightened, and that there is no need to apologise for what was really a compliment." "Since then I have found," he continued, "that all that I had read upon your face was true.