Instead , he cut a loose handful of daffodils and , looking furtively about him as if committing a crime , he laid them across the footpath under the pine . She must pass that way ; her feet would crush them if she failed to see them . Then he slipped back into his garden , half exultant , half repentant . From a safe retreat he saw her pass by and stoop to lift his flowers . Thereafter he put some in the same place every day . When Alice Reade saw the flowers she knew at once who had put them there , and divined that they were for her . She lifted them tenderly in much surprise and pleasure . She had heard all about Jasper Dale and his shyness ; but before she had heard about him she had seen him in church and liked him . She thought his face and his dark blue eyes beautiful ; she even liked the long brown hair that Carlisle people laughed at . That he was quite different from other people she had understood at once , but she thought the difference in his favour . Perhaps her sensitive nature divined and responded to the beauty in his . At least , in her eyes Jasper Dale was never a ridiculous figure . When she heard the story of the west gable , which most people disbelieved , she believed it , although she did not understand it . It invested the shy man with interest and romance . She felt that she would have liked , out of no impertinent curiosity , to solve the mystery ; she believed that it contained the key to his character . Thereafter , every day she found flowers under the pine tree ; she wished to see Jasper to thank him , unaware that he watched her daily from the screen of shrubbery in his garden ; but it was some time before she found the opportunity . One evening she passed when he , not expecting her , was leaning against his garden fence with a book in his hand . She stopped under the pine . `` Mr. Dale , '' she said softly , `` I want to thank you for your flowers . '' Jasper , startled , wished that he might sink into the ground .
His anguish XXXXX embarrassment made her smile a little .
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