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82 "Do you think I need more reward than the knowledge that it was you whom I could help? When I saw you yesterday, my heart leapt, and I vowed"

"Well?" she asked, as he paused; and when he still hesitated, checked by the thought that he had no right to speak thus while the truth of his position was still unexplained, she added, with a little frown and a very winsome smile, "you break off at most irritating points, cousin."

"I vowed myself to your service for good or ill," he said deliberately.

"Take care what you say, cousin. Did you know who I was?"

"Not then, indeed."

"Then was that surely a most dangerous vow."

"How?"

She laughed merrily. "Supposing it had not been Gabrielle to whom you thus rashly vowed yourself; what would you have done?"

"I had not thought of it. No other woman would have drawn such a vow from me."

"You turn words well—so well that I could almost be afraid of your skill. Shall we go out on the terrace? The evening air is lovely. Tell me," she said, as they walked, "how came you to be playing trespasser so opportunely to-day in Malincourt. It has puzzled me."

"If I tell the truth, I was lurking in the wood, hoping to catch a sight of you again."

"You had learnt who this lady of your vow was by that time, then?"

"Else I had not been in Malincourt," he answered, without thinking.

She glanced at him quickly, her face wrinkled with this fresh puzzle.

"Is not that a worse puzzle?" she asked. "Knowing who I was, why not have come straight to the maison?"