I must know."
It seemed to Gyp that her heart had given up beating; she said quietly:
"Let's sit down a minute"; and moved under the cliff bank where they
could not be seen from the house. There, drawing the coarse grass blades
through her fingers, she said, with a shiver:
"I didn't try to make you, did I? I never tried."
"No; never."
"It's wrong."
"Who cares? No one could care who loves as I do. Oh, Gyp, can't you love
me? I know I'm nothing much." How quaint and boyish! "But it's eleven
weeks to-day since we met in the train. I don't think I've had one
minute's let-up since."
"Have you tried?"
"Why should I, when I love you?"
Gyp sighed; relief, delight, pain--she did not know.
"Then what is to be done? Look over there--that bit of blue in the grass
is my baby daughter. There's her--and my father--and--"
"And what?"
"I'm afraid--afraid of love, Bryan!"
At that first use of his name, Summerhay turned pale and seized her
hand.
"Afraid--how--afraid?"
Gyp said very low:
"I might love too much. Don't say any more now. No; don't! Let's go in
and have lunch." And she got up.
He stayed till tea-time, and not a word more of love did he speak. But
when he was gone, she sat under the pine-tree with little Gyp on her
lap. Love! If her mother had checked love, she herself would never have
been born. The midges were biting before she went in.
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