“Yes,” he said. “You are surprised that I, who am almost a stranger, should wish to speak to you alone; but one is not always the master of his own actions, not always a free agent. Miss Vanley, will you promise to listen patiently to me, however much I shall try your patience, your sweet gentleness? Will you not sit down?”
She sank on to the grass, and looked up, and yet not at him, for her eyes were heavy with a strange shyness, and it seemed to her that he must hear her heart beat, it echoed with such full joy every word of his musical voice.
“I shall try your patience,” he said, with a suppressed sigh, still looking on the ground. “I came this morning to stand here before you as a suitor”—her face grew pale and her lips quivered, and a wild thrill of joy ran through her—“as a humble suitor, as a man pleading for something dearer even than life!” His voice broke for a moment. “Yes, dearer than life. You see I find my task difficult; even now, now that I have ventured to begin, I would draw back if I could——” She glanced up at him, half-amazedly, half-sorrowfully. “For I realize how great, how precious a treasure it is that I am striving for. But I am not free—a stronger will than mine impels me. Miss Vanley forget if you can—I know it will be hard—that I am almost a stranger, that you know nothing of me, and—listen to me. Do not send me away till I have told you what I came to tell you, what I would have kept from you, even now, if I had not given my word.”
Again the look swept over her face.
“You will not wonder that a man should love you. I don’t think it is possible for any one to see you, to hear you, to be in your presence for one short day without loving you.”
No words can describe the infinite tenderness and reverence, and yet the infinite sadness of his voice. At that moment, even so soon, she could have stretched out her arms to him.
“No!” he continued. “No one could help loving you, and no one loves you more dearly, more truly, more passionately. That I can say with perfect truth; and I beg, I implore you to believe it! There are better, wiser men, but none in all the world who will more greatly prize the treasure of your love, if you will give it him.”
She sat, her hands clasped, her eyes hidden under their long lashes. All thought, all remembrance of Bartley Bradstone, of her father’s impending ruin, had passed from her. She was living, absorbed, in this, the one, the great moment, of her existence.
“If a life’s devotion can insure your happiness, I can pledge it. I do so. Of all else I say nothing. You know something of him already; I think, I know you can trust him. What will you say to me, Olivia?” The name slipped from him unawares. “What answer shall I get? Will you trust yourself to the man who loves you with all his heart and soul? Will you make him the happiest or the most wretched man in all the world?”
He had grown earnest, for all his guard upon his words and voice, and as he made his final appeal he bent over her.