"It is not as it was in the mountains," she said.

"I am older now, and safe, and--and happy.

And you have many things to do and to think of, and many friends--gentlemen and beautiful ladies--to go to see.

I thought--last night--that when I saw you I would ask your pardon for not remembering that the mountains were years ago; for troubling you with my matters, sir; for making too free, forgetting my place"-- Her voice sank; the shamed red was in her cheeks, and her eyes, that she had bravely kept upon his face, fell to the purple and gold blooms in her lap.
Haward rose from the grass, and, with his back to the gray hole of the willow, looked first at the veil of leaf and stem through which dimly showed house, orchard, and blue sky, then down upon the girl at his feet.
Her head was bent and she sat very still, one listless, upturned hand upon the grass beside her, the other lying as quietly among her flowers.
"Audrey," he said at last, "you shame me in your thoughts of me.

I am not that knight without fear and without reproach for which you take me.