"Well, then, I apologize, and I am very sorry, and I won't do it again: is that enough?"
"No, the fact still remains," gazing at her hand with a little pout, as though the offending kiss were distinctly visible; "and I don't want it."
"But what can be done?"
"I think—you had better—take it back again," says she, the pretended pout dissolving into an irresistible smile, as she slips her fingers with a sudden unexpected movement into his; after which she breaks into a merry laugh."
"And now tell me," he persists, holding them close prisoners, and bestowing a loving caress upon each separately.
"Whether I love you? How can I, when I don't know myself? Perhaps at the end I may be sure. When I lie a-dying you must come to me, and bend over me, and say, 'Molly Bawn, do you love me?' And I shall whisper back with my last breath, 'yes' or 'no,' as the case may be."
"Don't talk of dying," he says, with a shudder, tightening his clasp.
"Why not? as we must die."
"But not now, not while we are young and happy. Afterward, when old age creeps on us and we look on love as weariness, it will not matter."
"To me, that is the horror of it," with a quick distasteful shiver, leaning forward in her earnestness, "to feel that sooner or later there will be no hope; that we must go, whether with or without our own will,—and it is never with it, is it?"