"Yes. I will marry you when the war is over."
"Or when you are twenty-one, even if it be not over?"
"Yes."
"Now, then," he said, "you are my betrothed;" and he drew her within his arm. "My honor, my hopes, my happiness, are in your hands."
"They are safe. Though I am only a girl, I know what my promise means. I shall keep it."
"I believe you. And you will love me? You will learn to love me, Maria?"
"I will do my best to make you happy, you ought not to ask more."
"Very well." He looked at her with a new and delightful interest. She was his own, her promise had been given. He could, indeed, tell by her eyes,—languid, but obstinately masterful—that she would not be easily won, but he did not dislike that; he would conquer her by the strength of his own love; he would make her understand what love really meant. Still, he felt that for the present it would be better to go away, so he said:
"You shall hear from me as soon as possible. Try and sleep, my dear one. You may tell yourself, 'Ernest is doing all that can be done.'" Then he took her hands and kissed them, and in a moment she was alone. Her heart was heavy as lead, and she was cold and trembling, but she was no longer in the shadow of Death. Medway's face, turned to her in the semi-darkness of the open door, was full of hope; and there was an atmosphere of power about the man which assured her of success; but she truly felt at that hour as if it was bought with her life. She was in the dungeon of despair; there seemed nothing to hope for, nothing to desire, in all the to-morrows of the years before her. "And I may have sixty years to live," she moaned; for youth exaggerates every feeling, and would be grieved to believe that its sorrows were not immortal.
She pushed the dying fire safely together, looked mournfully round the darksome room, closed and locked the door. Then Neil came toward her and asked if Lord Medway could do anything, and she answered, "He can save Harry's life; he has promised that. I suppose he will be imprisoned, but his life is saved. What did grandmother say about Lord Medway being here?"