He looked at her attentively, as, with her fair head bare and her arms spread out along the top bar of the gate, she asked this naive question.

It suddenly came over him that she had not really the remotest conception as to how rare her beauty was. She regarded herself, of course, as a “pretty” girl, but she had no notion that she moved through Blacksod like one of those women of antiquity about whose loveliness the noblest legends of the world were made! A certain vein of predatory roguery in him led him to play up to this simplicity.

“I liked you best when you were whistling to me,” he said. But in his senses he thought: “I should be a madman not to snatch at her!” And in his soul he thought: “I shall marry her. As sure as tomorrow follows today, I shall marry her!”

“I liked you best when you were hunting for me at Poll’s Camp,” said Gerda. “But I can’t understand⁠—”