"I love you with all my heart and soul. But I am not good enough for
you."
"I thought we agreed you were not like other women, and yet there is
this stiff-necked obstinacy." He drew her nearer to him, and kissed her
on the lips. "It is settled--you are to be my wife."
His domination seemed to hypnotise her. "Yes, I will do my best to make
you a perfect wife, dear," she murmured, as if bowing to his
irresistible will.
He held her hands tighter, and looked into her face as if proudly. She
met his look with glistening eyes: she was deathly pale now, and her
lips, too, were colourless. Then abruptly she drew her hands from him,
and, as if impelled on some tide of womanhood that rose in high music
above all hesitations, above the fluttering timidity of her whole life,
she threw her arms round his neck, and kissed his lips with a long
abandonment.
"I am now almost afraid of your sister," she whispered presently. "I
shall feel on my trial."
"But she has fallen in love with you already," he reassured her again.
"And Mary is the sweetest and gentlest soul in the world."
"I know I shall love her," she said. Her head hung down a moment in
meditation. "But let us continue the work now, dear. I know you wish to
have it finished to-day."
But he had little now to add to it, and he had made his last stroke
before the dusk of the afternoon overtook him.