"I will write it, then."
There was a momentary pause; he closed his eyes. The girl, noting, amid her own suffering, the deathly look upon his face, came to his side. "You must go back to the house," she said. "Will my arm be enough? Or shall I call July?"
He looked at her; a light came back into his eyes. "Anne," he whispered, "would not the whole world be well lost to us if we could have but love and each other?"
She returned his gaze. "Yes," she said, "it would—if happiness were all."
"Then you would be happy with me, darling?"
"Yes."
"Alone with me, and—in banishment?"
"In banishment, in disgrace, in poverty, pain, and death," she answered, steadily.
"Then you will go with me, trusting to me only?" He was holding her hands now, and she did not withdraw them.
"No," she answered; "never. If happiness were all, I said. But it is not all. There is something nearer, higher than happiness." She paused. Then rapidly and passionately these words broke from her: "Ward, Ward, you are far more than my life to me. Do not kill me, kill my love for you, my faith in you, by trying to tempt me more. You could not succeed; I tell you plainly you could never succeed; but it is not on that account I speak. It is because it would kill me to lose my belief in you, my love, my only, only love!"