There was a quaver in her voice, and she let the sentence end itself there.
He sat for a moment looking straight at the middle of the path before him. Then deliberately he turned about, put his arm behind her again, and took her hand in his.
"Janet," he said, "if you had been here in two or three months from now, there was a question I had all made up to ask you."
"A question?"
"As long as you might have to go away, I might as well tell you now—before you are gone. I was going to ask you in two or three months whether, if—— But no. That is n't fair. What I mean is, will you marry me? Would you?"
Janet paused during a space that would best be represented by a musical rest—a silence in the midst of a symphony. Then her clear eyes turned toward him.
"Yes, Steve; I would."
"You would! Do you mean that now—for keeps?"
"I could go and live with you anywhere in the world. I could almost have answered that two days ago."
Her hand was taken tighter in his grasp. The edge of his sombrero touched the top of her head, and she felt herself being taken under its broad brim with a sense of everlasting shelter. And just then they were interrupted. A visitor to the court-room came up the path—unnoticed till he was almost past. At the same time there was a sound of footsteps coming down the courthouse steps. It was the Professor. Seeing which Steve released her hand and assumed a more conventional public attitude until this particular spectator should be gone. The Professor passed. He kept on his way down the path and did not look back; whereupon Steve took possession of her hand again. It was such a fine delicate hand to him—so small and tender a hand to have to grapple with things of this rough world; he looked at it thoughtfully and hefted it as so much precious property in his own.