Not for days. Then, when I'd
gone, I found what I'd never dreamed of; how much I could love."
"And now?" he whispered.
"Ah, more than then!" The low cry leapt from her lips. "A thousand times
more."
"But you don't trust me?"
"Why don't I, Ban?" she pleaded. "What have you done? How have you
changed?"
He shook his head. "Yet you've given me your love. Do you trust
yourself?"
"Yes," she answered with a startling quietude of certainty. "In that I
do. Absolutely."
"Then I'll chance the rest. You're upset to-night, aren't you, Io?
You've let your imagination run away with you."
"This isn't a new thing to me. It began--I don't know when it began.
Yes; I do. Before I ever knew or thought of you. Oh, long before! When I
was no more than a baby."
"Rede me your riddle, love," he said lightly.
"It's so silly. You mustn't laugh; no, you wouldn't laugh. But you
mustn't be angry with me for being a fool. Childhood impressions are
terribly lasting things, Ban.... Yes, I'm going to tell you. It was a
nurse I had when I was only four, I think; such a pretty, dainty Irish
creature, the pink-and-black type. She used to cry over me and say--I
don't suppose she thought I would ever understand or remember--'Beware
the brown-eyed boys, darlin'.
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