"We have nothing to do with that just now, Alan. You must try."
And then they said no more.
But when the afternoon came and Alan was ready to depart—for when once he had made up his mind that he must go, he thought it better not to linger—he drew Lettice inside her little study again, and looked her full in the face.
"Lettice, before I go, will you kiss me once?"
She did not hesitate. She lifted her face, calmly and seriously, and kissed him on the mouth.
But she was not prepared for the grip in which he seized her, and the passionate pressure of her lips which he returned. "Lettice, my dearest, my own love," he said, holding her close to him as he spoke, "suppose I fail! If the law will not set me free, what will you do?"
She was silent for a minute or two, and he saw that her face grew pale.
"Oh," she said at last, in a sighing voice, broken at last by a despairing sob, "if man's law is so hard, Alan, surely then we may trust ourselves to God's!"
"Promise me," he said, "that you will never give me up—that, whatever happens, you will one day be mine!"
"Whatever happens," she answered, "I am yours, Alan, in life or death—in time and for eternity."