The girl leaned back against the wall near which she had seated herself.
The young man bent forward, taking both her hands quietly in his own
now, and gazing steadily into her eyes. There was no triumph in his
gaze. Perhaps John Law had prescience of the future.

"Oh, sir, I had far liefer I had never seen you," cried Catharine
Knollys, bending a head from whose eyes there dropped sudden tears.

"Ah, dear heart, say anything but that!"

"'Tis a hard way a woman must travel at best in this world," murmured
the Lady Catharine, with wisdom all unsuited to her youth. "But I can
not understand. I had thought that the coming of a lover was a joyous
thing, a time of happiness alone."

"Ah, now, in the hour of mist can you not foresee the time of sunshine?
All life is before us, my sweet, all life. There is much for us to do,
there are so many, many days of love and happiness."

But now the Lady Catharine Knollys veered again, with some sudden change
of the inner currents of the feminine soul.

"I have gone far with you, Mr. Law," said she, suddenly disengaging her
hand. "Yet I did but give you insight of things which any man coming as
you have come should have well within his knowledge. Think not, sir,
that I am easy to be won. I must know you equally honest with myself.
And if you come to my regard, it must be step by step and stair by
stair. This is to be remembered."

"I shall remember."