"Oh, the blue, blue sky!" she cried, "and oh, the hills! I have not seen them for a year. As for the poplars, I should love to kiss their old boughs, I am so glad to be beneath them once more."
But as she proceeded farther her spirits seemed to droop again, and she cast him furtive looks as much as to say:
"Is it right? ought I to be enjoying all this bliss?"
But the smile on his face was so assured, she speedily took courage again, and allowed him to lead her to the end of the poplar-walk, far up in those regions where his eye had often strayed but his feet never been even in fancy. On a certain bench they sat down, and he turned towards her a beaming face.
"Now I feel as if you were mine," he cried. "Nothing shall part us after this, not even your own words."
But she put her hands out with a meek, deprecating gesture, very unlike the imperious one she had indulged in before.
"You must not say that," she cried. "My coming out may have been a weakness, but it shall not be followed by what you yourself might come to regard as a wrong. I am here, and it was for your pleasure I came, but that commits me to nothing and you to nothing, unless it be to the momentary delight. Do you hear that bird sing?"
"You are lovely with that flickering sunlight on your face," was all the reply he made.
And perhaps he could have made no better, for it gave her a sweet sense of helplessness in the presence of this great love, which to a woman who had been so long bearing herself up in solitary assertion had all the effect of rest and relief.
"You make me feel as if my youth was not quite gone," said she; "but," she added, as his hand stole towards hers, "you have not yet made me feel that I must listen to all the promptings of love. There is a gulf between me and you across which we cannot shake hands. But we can speak, friend, to one another, and that is a pleasure to one who has travelled so long in a wilderness alone. Shall we not let that content us, or do you wish to risk life and all by attempting more?"