"Well, never mind. Tell me instead when you intend leaving Brooklyn."
"In a fortnight we must leave it. Is it not a little while?—only two short weeks in which to say good-bye forever to my home,—(how much that word comprises!)—to the place where all my life has been spent,—where every stone, and tree, and path is endeared to me by a thousand memories."
"And after?"
"We go to London. There I hope to work out my idea."
"You have forgotten to tell me," says Luttrell, slowly, "my part in all these arrangements."
"Yours? Ah, Teddy, you put an end to our engagement in good time. Now it must have been broken, whether we liked it or not."
"Meaning that I must not throw in my lot with yours? Do you know what folly you are talking?" says Luttrell, almost roughly. "Ours, I am assured, is an engagement that cannot be broken. Not all the cruel words that could be spoken—that have been spoken"—in a low tone of reproach—"have power to separate us. You are mine, Molly, as I am yours, forever. I will never give you up. And now—now—in the hour of your trouble——" Breaking off, he gets up from his seat and commences to pace the room excitedly.
She has risen too, and is standing with her eyes fixed anxiously upon him. At length, "Let us put an end now to all misconceptions and doubts," he says, stopping before her. "Your manner that last evening at Herst, your greeting of to-day, have led me to hope again. I would know without further delay whether I am wrong in thinking you care more for me than for any other man. Am I? Speak, Molly, tell me now—here—if you love me."
"I do—I do!" cries she, bursting into tears again, and flinging herself in an abandonment of grief into his longing arms. "And that is what makes my task so hard. That is why I have not allowed myself to see you all these past days. It was not coldness, Teddy, it was love. I dared not see you, because all must be at an end between us."
"Do you think, with you in my arms like this, with the assurance of your love fresh upon your lips, and now"—stooping—"upon mine, I can do anything but laugh at such treason as that?"