CHAPTER XI. A LOVER AND HIS LASS
Kilmeny was in the orchard when Eric reached it, and he lingered for amoment in the shadow of the spruce wood to dream over her beauty.
The orchard had lately overflowed in waves of old-fashioned caraway, andshe was standing in the midst of its sea of bloom, with the lace-likeblossoms swaying around her in the wind. She wore the simple dress ofpale blue print in which he had first seen her; silk attire could notbetter have become her loveliness. She had woven herself a chapletof half open white rosebuds and placed it on her dark hair, where thedelicate blossoms seemed less wonderful than her face.
When Eric stepped through the gap she ran to meet him with outstretchedhands, smiling. He took her hands and looked into her eyes with anexpression before which hers for the first time faltered. She lookeddown, and a warm blush strained the ivory curves of her cheek andthroat. His heart bounded, for in that blush he recognized the banner oflove's vanguard.
"Are you glad to see me, Kilmeny?" he asked, in a low significant tone.
She nodded, and wrote in a somewhat embarrassed fashion,
"Yes. Why do you ask? You know I am always glad to see you. I was afraidyou would not come. You did not come last night and I was so sorry.Nothing in the orchard seemed nice any longer. I couldn't even play. Itried to, and my violin only cried. I waited until it was dark and thenI went home."
"I am sorry you were disappointed, Kilmeny. I couldn't come last night.Some day I shall tell you why. I stayed home to learn a new lesson. I amsorry you missed me--no, I am glad. Can you understand how a person maybe glad and sorry for the same thing?"
She nodded again, with a return of her usual sweet composure.
"Yes, I could not have understood once, but I can now. Did you learnyour new lesson?"
"Yes, very thoroughly. It was a delightful lesson when I once understoodit. I must try to teach it to you some day. Come over to the old bench,Kilmeny. There is something I want to say to you. But first, will yougive me a rose?"
She ran to the bush, and, after careful deliberation, selected a perfecthalf-open bud and brought it to him--a white bud with a faint, sunriseflush about its golden heart.
"Thank you. It is as beautiful as--as a woman I know," Eric said.
A wistful look came into her face at his words, and she walked with adrooping head across the orchard to the bench.
"Kilmeny," he said, seriously, "I am going to ask you to do somethingfor me. I want you to take me home with you and introduce me to youruncle and aunt."
She lifted her head and stared at him incredulously, as if he had askedher to do something wildly impossible. Understanding from his grave facethat he meant what he said, a look of dismay dawned in her eyes. Sheshook her head almost violently and seemed to be making a passionate,instinctive effort to speak. Then she caught up her pencil and wrotewith feverish haste:
"I cannot do that. Do not ask me to. You do not understand. They wouldbe very angry. They do not want to see any one coming to the house. Andthey would never let me come here again. Oh, you do not mean it?"
He pitied her for the pain and bewilderment in her eyes; but he took herslender hands in his and said firmly,
"Yes, Kilmeny, I do mean it. It is not quite right for us to be meetingeach other here as we have been doing, without the knowledge and consentof your friends. You cannot now understand this, but--believe me--it isso."
She looked questioningly, pityingly into his eyes. What she read thereseemed to convince her, for she turned very pale and an expression ofhopelessness came into her face. Releasing her hands, she wrote slowly,
"If you say it is wrong I must believe it. I did not know anything sopleasant could be wrong. But if it is wrong we must not meet here anymore. Mother told me I must never do anything that was wrong. But I didnot know this was wrong."
"It was not wrong for you, Kilmeny. But it was a little wrong for me,because I knew better--or rather, should have known better. I didn'tstop to think, as the children say. Some day you will understand fully.Now, you will take me to your uncle and aunt, and after I have saidto them what I want to say it will be all right for us to meet here oranywhere."
She shook her head.
"No," she wrote, "Uncle Thomas and Aunt Janet will tell you to go awayand never come back. And they will never let me come here any more.Since it is not right to meet you I will not come, but it is no use tothink of going to them. I did not tell them about you because I knewthat they would forbid me to see you, but I am sorry, since it is sowrong."
"You must take me to them," said Eric firmly. "I am quite sure thatthings will not be as you fear when they hear what I have to say."
Uncomforted, she wrote forlornly,
"I must do it, since you insist, but I am sure it will be no use. Icannot take you to-night because they are away. They went to the storeat Radnor. But I will take you to-morrow night; and after that I shallnot see you any more."
Two great tears brimmed over in her big blue eyes and splashed downon her slate. Her lips quivered like a hurt child's. Eric put his armimpulsively about her and drew her head down upon his shoulder. As shecried there, softly, miserably, he pressed his lips to the silky blackhair with its coronal of rosebuds. He did not see two burning eyes whichwere looking at him over the old fence behind him with hatred and madpassion blazing in their depths. Neil Gordon was crouched there, withclenched hands and heaving breast, watching them.
"Kilmeny, dear, don't cry," said Eric tenderly. "You shall see me again.I promise you that, whatever happens. I do not think your uncle and auntwill be as unreasonable as you fear, but even if they are they shall notprevent me from meeting you somehow."
Kilmeny lifted her head, and wiped the tears from her eyes.
"You do not know what they are like," she wrote. "They will lock me intomy room. That is the way they always punished me when I was a littlegirl. And once, not so very long ago, when I was a big girl, they didit."
"If they do I'll get you out somehow," said Eric, laughing a little.
She allowed herself to smile, but it was a rather forlorn little effort.She did not cry any more, but her spirits did not come back to her. Erictalked gaily, but she only listened in a pensive, absent way, as if shescarcely heard him. When he asked her to play she shook her head.
"I cannot think any music to-night," she wrote, "I must go home, for myhead aches and I feel very stupid."
"Very well, Kilmeny. Now, don't worry, little girl. It will all come outall right."
Evidently she did not share his confidence, for her head drooped againas they walked together across the orchard. At the entrance of the wildcherry lane she paused and looked at him half reproachfully, her eyesfilling again. She seemed to be bidding him a mute farewell. With animpulse of tenderness which he could not control, Eric put his arm abouther and kissed her red, trembling mouth. She started back with a littlecry. A burning colour swept over her face, and the next moment she fledswiftly up the darkening lane.
The sweetness of that involuntary kiss clung to Eric's lips as he wenthomeward, half-intoxicating him. He knew that it had opened the gates ofwomanhood to Kilmeny. Never again, he felt, would her eyes meet his withtheir old unclouded frankness. When next he looked into them he knewthat he should see there the consciousness of his kiss. Behind her inthe orchard that night Kilmeny had left her childhood.