"So nearly too late!"
"But not too late."
"But you were too late,—only for the inexpressible goodness of another. Have you thought what I owe—what you and I owe—to Mr Whittlestaff?"
"My darling!"
"But I am his darling. Only it sounds so conceited in any girl to say so. Why should he care so much about me?—or why should you, for the matter of that?"
"Mary, Mary, come to me now." And he held out both his hands. She looked round, fearing intrusive eyes, but seeing none, she allowed him to embrace her. "My own,—at last my own. How well you understood me in those old days. And yet it was all without a word,—almost without a sign." She bowed her head before she had escaped from his arms. "Now I am a happy man."
"It is he that has done it for you."
"Am I not thankful?"
"How can I be thankful as I ought? Think of the gratitude that I owe him,—think of all the love! What man has loved as he has done? Who has brought himself so to abandon to another the reward he had thought it worth his while to wish for? You must not count the value of the thing."
"But I do."