"I must go," she whispered.
"Must you, dearest—Celia?" he asked, with all a lover's reluctance.
"Yes," she said, the word broken with a sigh. "I am sorry; but I must go. I don't know how late it is."
He took the watch from her belt—the very act was a caress—and looked at it.
"We have been here an hour. It seems only a minute. And we must part! That's hard."
"Yes, it's hard," she whispered, with a long breath. "But we shall meet again. Oh, I couldn't bear to think that we shall not meet again soon. You will come—will you come to the Hall?"
He knit his brows.
"I can't, dearest; I can't. Don't ask me why. God knows I want to tell you everything; but—but presently. You can trust me, Celia?"
"I'd trust you with my life, with all that there is of me," she said, with a simplicity that made him catch her to him.
"You must trust me, for the present," he said. "Let me think things over. I can't think now—I can scarcely realise that you are in my arms, that you are mine. Mine! Mine, after all this time of waiting and longing. Tell me once more, just once more, that you love me, Celia."