“No,” I answered nervously; “how could there be, when there are only a few altogether? Don’t go on catechizing, Tom; talk of something. Tell me about England.”
“Any one?” he persisted, now looking very grave and eager, and leaning his arm on his knee to see more clearly into my face.
I had to tell the truth. I looked up at a green apple hanging before me, staring with misty eyes, as if I were having my photograph taken. I replied as steadily as I could, “Not any one that I know of.”
“One question more, Kitty, and you’ll bless my impudence for asking it, I dare say, but I won’t bother you any more. Are you sorry you are going, because of leaving me?”
I did not bless his impudence. I looked into his dear, handsome, eager face, and thought of all that leaving him would cost me, and how blank and empty England would be, if there were untold millions of men in it; and—I am ashamed to say it, though I could not help it any more than I could help being dumb to express my sentiments in any other way—I put my hands to my face and began to cry. I need not say what happened after that. In an instant hands and face were hidden in his breast, and his own strong hands were clasped closely over them. It was only what I might have expected.
“My love! My pretty Kitty! Bless you, my darling!” he exclaimed in a strong passion of emotion that went over me like a tidal wave; and he kissed the top of my head in a way that made my very toes tingle. “Why need we be separated, my own dear love? If you want me I will come—or I will wait and come—or I will keep you back. Somehow—some way—I will manage that we shall not lose one another. Do you want me, Kitty?”
“Do you want me?” I whispered, lifting my head a little, without drawing it away. “That is the question.”
“Haven’t I shown you that? Why, before I went away, when you were ever such a little thing, all the time I was at Oxford, every day since I came home—dreadfully ever since I came home—I have wanted you. You would have broken my heart on Friday night with that news you brought me, only somehow—you won’t mind my saying so now, Kitty?—somehow I had a feeling that it would all come right.”
“I oughtn’t to have let you feel so, Tom.”
“Yes; you couldn’t help it. And now it has come right I’m the happiest dog in the wide world. Aren’t you happy yourself, now?”