Did you not ?" She could not meet those honest eyes with less than equal honesty.
She knew that Jessie did not love him--would not marry him--whatever coquetry she might have shown.
"I did not mean to offend you," she said hesitatingly; "I only half suspected it when I spoke." "And you wish to spare me the avowal ?" he said bitterly.
"To me, perhaps, yes, by anticipating it.

I could not tell what ideas you might have gathered from some indiscreet frankness of Jessie--or my father," she added, with almost equal bitterness.
"I have never spoken to either," he replied quickly.

He stopped, and added, after a moment's mortifying reflection, "I've been brought up in the woods, Miss Carr, and I suppose I have followed my feelings, instead of the etiquette of society." Christie was too relieved at the rehabilitation of Jessie's truthfulness to notice the full significance of his speech.
"Good-by," he said again, holding out his hand.
"Good-by!" She extended her own, ungloved, with a frank smile.

He held it for a moment, with his eyes fixed upon hers.

Then suddenly, as if obeying an uncontrollable impulse, he crushed it like a flower again and again against his burning lips, and darted away.
Christie sank back in her saddle with a little cry, half of pain and half of frightened surprise.