Her lips quivered and her eyes drooped before his. How strange a thing this love was, that it should change a man so!
"I don't want to force you to answer," he said, after a pause. "Yes, I do! I'd give half the remainder of my life to hear you say the one word, 'yes.' But I won't. It's too—too precious. Ah, don't you understand! I want your love, your love, Ida!"
"Yes, I understand," she murmured. "And—and I would say it if—if I were sure. But I—yes, I am all confused. It is like a dream. I want to think, to ask myself if—if I can do what you want."
She put up her hand to her lips with a slight gesture, as if to keep them from trembling.
"I want to be alone to think of all—all you have told me."
Her gauntlet slipped from her hand, and he knelt on one knee and picked it up, and still kneeling, took both her hands in his. It did not occur to him to remember that the woman who hesitates is won; something in her girlish innocence, in her exquisitely sweet candour, filled him with awe.
"Dearest!" he said, in so low a voice that, the note of the curlew flying above them sounded loud and shrill by contrast. "Dearest!—for you are that to me!—I will not press you. I will be content to wait. God knows you are right to hesitate! Your love is too great, too precious a thing to be given to me without thought. I'm not worthy to touch you—but I love you! I will wait. You shall think of all I have said; and, let your answer be what it may, I won't complain! But—Ida—you mustn't forget that I love you with all my heart and soul!"
She looked down at his handsome face, the face over which her lips had hovered only a short time since, and her lips moved.
"You—you are good to me," she said, in a faintly troubled voice. "Yes,
I know, I feel that. Perhaps I ought to say 'no!'"
"Don't!" he said, almost fiercely. "Wait! Let me see you again—you scarcely know me. Ah, Ida, what can I do, how can I win your love?"