Donogan clasped her to his heart as she said it, and held her some seconds in a fast embrace. ‘At last I know what it is to love,’ cried he, with rapture.
‘Look there!’ cried she, suddenly disengaging herself from his arm. ‘They are in the drawing-room already. I can see them as they pass the windows. I must go back, if it be for a moment, as I should be missed.’
‘Can I let you leave me now?’ he said, and the tears were in his eyes as he spoke.
‘I have given you my word, and you may trust me,’ said she, as she held out her hand.
‘I was forgetting this document: this is the lease or the agreement I told you of.’ She took it, and hurried away.
In less than five minutes afterwards she was among the company in the drawing-room.
‘Here have I been singing a rebel ballad, Nina,’ said Kate, ‘and not knowing the while it was Mr. Atlee who wrote it.’
‘What, Mr. Atlee,’ cried Nina, ‘is the “Time to begin” yours?’ And then, without waiting for an answer, she seated herself at the piano, and striking the chords of the accompaniment with a wild and vigorous hand, she sang—
‘If the moment is come and the hour to need us,
If we stand man to man, like kindred and kin;
If we know we have one who is ready to lead us,
What want we for more than the word to begin?’
The wild ring of defiance in which her clear, full voice gave out these words, seemed to electrify all present, and to a second or two of perfect silence a burst of applause followed, that even Curtis, with all his loyalty, could not refrain from joining.