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 motionless, absorbed, until he was roused by a sudden imperious movement of her head which more plainly than words bade him descend.

He did so, with something less than his usual agility, since as he leaped downward a vine caught his foot and nearly threw him. He stumbled, then turned to find that she had risen and was moving towards him.

"I will read your thoughts, sir," she said in low, clear tones, full of a mock humility. "You are thinking what a monstrous unmaidenly thing it is that I have done in bringing you here over a back wall to a meeting with me in this secret place."

Lachlan smiled.

"It happened," he replied, "that when the black boy plucked my sleeve, I had been searching my brain to find a way in which I might come to you, and I had already decided to try the garden wall. It had served me once and might serve again."

She flushed. Perhaps the answer displeased her. It seemed to Lachlan that her tone was colder as she bade him take seat beside her.

"I brought you here," she said, "to offer my apologies, to make amends for my ungracious conduct on that occasion when you so gallantly came to my assistance, thinking me in distress. Believe me, sir, my scant courtesy then has troubled me ever since. I could not rest until I had spoken these words to you in person, and I knew no other way to accomplish it save this."

"It was nothing, Mam'selle," Lachlan said quickly.