‘You sweet! Then, sometimes, thinking you—what I thought you, it seemed a mad presumption on my part—O, I have such a tale to tell you, Joan! But now, two nameless things together——’
‘It was that, Brion, which made me afraid to set you right. I thought, if you knew the truth, you would not want to love me any more.’
‘What has loving you to do with titles? A man, save his veins were arctic ice, could love and desire you for your own self, I think. Did your father treat you kindly?’
‘He had not been unkind, I trow, unless for my lady sister, who liked me not. He gave me my little Gritty. O, Brion, the day I had to go, and could not keep my tryst! He was ever so in his decisions, sudden and inexorable. I thought I should have wept myself to death.’
She turned to him, bewildered even with the memory: he held out passionate arms, unable to contain himself longer.
‘Come to your true-mate, pretty bird—Nay, I will have you. O, darling, after all these years—ten, if a day, Joan—and I have all that hunger to make good!’
‘O, forbear, Brion! We shall be seen. O, I love you so.’ And then, all rosy and ruffled, she looked up in his face, and said, as she had said once before, so quaintly and trustingly: ‘Will you marry me, Brion?’
He laughed with joy.
‘How can such constancy live in such lovely kindness? Is it all for me—all? If I said no, Joan, would you love me still?’
‘Yes, Brion.’