It was as though the heavens had been opened to her. That he should speak a word that was not true was to her impossible. And, as it was so, she would not coy her love to him for a moment. If only she could have found words with which to speak to him! She could not even look up at him, but she put out her hand so as to touch him. “Lucy,” he said, “stand up and come to me.” Then she stood up and with one little step crept close to his side. “Lucy, can you love me?” And as he asked the question his arm was pressed round her waist, and as she put up her hand to welcome rather than to restrain his embrace, she again felt the strength, the support, and the warmth of his grasp. “Will you not say that you love me?”
“I am such a poor thing,” she replied.
“A poor thing, are you? Well, yes; there are different ways of being poor. I have been poor enough in my time, but I never thought myself a poor thing. And you must not say it ever of yourself again.”
“No?”
“My girl must not think herself a poor thing. May I not say, my girl?” Then there was just a little murmur, a sound which would have been “yes” but for the inability of her lips to open themselves. “And if my girl, then my wife. And shall my wife be called a poor thing? No, Lucy. I have seen it all. I don’t think I like poor things;—but I like you.”
“Do you?”
“I do. And now I must go back to the City Road and give up charge and take my money. And I must leave this at seven—after a cup of tea. Shall I see you again?”
“See me again! Oh, to-day, you mean. Indeed you shall. Not see you off? My own, own, own man?”
“What will they say at the office?”
“I don’t care what they say. Let them say what they like. I have never been absent a day yet without leave. What time shall I be here?” Then he named an hour. “Of course I will have your last words. Perhaps you will tell me something that I must do.”