‘Speak to me,’ he murmured, caressingly and pleadingly. ‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t understand you, Mr. Protheroe,’ the girl said pantingly.
‘Not understand me, dear? ‘he whispered; ‘I am asking you to be my wife.’
‘I understand that,’ she answered, drawing herself away from him, and speaking with difficulty. ‘It is you I don’t understand. You—yourself.’
‘Tell me how, darling,’ he said softly.
‘You tell me,’ she said, lifting a pale and agitated face, ‘that I can’t guess how much my answer means to you. But you come here whistling and dancing, as you always come, as if you hadn’t a care upon your mind.’
‘Don’t make that a reproach against me, dear,’ said he. ‘Why it was just the thought of you made me so happy.’
She looked up at him with an expression of doubt and pain, and as their eyes met he caught one of her hands in both his, and held it.
‘Dear Bertha!’ he said, with a sudden moisture in his eyes. ‘There is nobody so good. There is nobody so lovely.’
She drew away from him again, though some sort of electric influence seemed to come out of him, and draw her strongly to him.