“You must, Norah!”
“Then, I do love you! God help us both! but I love you! I love you!” and tearing away her hand from mine, she put both hands before her face and burst into a passionate flood of tears.
There could be but one ending to such a scene. In an instant she was in my arms. Her will and mine went down before the sudden flood of passion that burst upon us both. She hid her face upon my breast, but I raised it tenderly, and our lips met in one long, loving, passionate kiss.
We sat on the boulder, hand in hand, and whispering confessed to each other, in the triumph of our love, all those little secrets of the growth of our affection that lovers hold dear. That final separation, which had been spoken of but a while ago, was kept out of sight by mutual consent; the dead would claim its dead soon enough. Love lives in the present and in the sunshine finds its joy.
Well, the men of old knew the human heart, when they fixed upon the butterfly as the symbol of the soul; for the rainbow is but sunshine through a cloud, and love, like the butterfly, takes the colours of the rainbow on its aery wings!
Long we sat in that beauteous spot. High above us towered the everlasting rocks; the green of nature’s planting lay beneath our feet; and far off the reflection of the sunset lightened the dimness of the soft twilight over the wrinkled sea.
We said little, as we sat hand in hand; but the silence was a poem, and the sound of the sea, and the beating of our hearts were hymns of praise to nature and to nature’s God.
We spoke no more of the future; for now that we knew that we were each beloved, the future had but little terror for us. We were content!
When we had taken our last kiss, and parted beneath the shadow of the rock, I watched her depart through the gloaming to her own home; and then I too took my way. At the foot of the Boreen I met Murdock, who looked at me in a strange manner, and merely growled some reply to my salutation.
I felt that I could never meet Dick to-night. Indeed, I wished to see no human being, and so I sat for long on the crags above the sounding sea; and then wandered down to the distant beach. To and fro I went all the night long, but ever in sight of the hill, and ever and anon coming near to watch the cottage where Norah slept.