“Listen,” he said, “I love you, love you, love you! Oh, if we were somewhere else! You can’t say ‘No’ now; you must not! You do love me, you must—listen, do you hear?—you must love me! If we were elsewhere I’d take you in my arms—I’ll do it anyway, here and now—what do I care? And you couldn’t stop me!”
He leaned impulsively forward. She stirred, and turned her face half-frightened toward him.
“Not here!”
“Tell me, then, do you love me?”
Her eyes looked full in his, and then, without dropping one of her Western r’s, she said:
“You know, Arthur.”
He crushed her hand until she winced with the pain.
V
EMILY and Dade had kept up a correspondence that gushed from their pens with all the olden spontaneity of their girlhood, though in the latter days this thin black-gowned matron who paused in her household duties to sit down to epistolary labors found it an effort which caused her rueful smiles to assume a character that was akin to her ancient self. Dade in her letters from Washington had hinted darkly at a secret she had to impart when they were, as she put it, heart to heart again, though her constant and enthusiastic celebration of Lieutenant Beck of the cavalry detracted somewhat from the mystery she was saving for Emily’s stupefaction.