She turned from him, and looked out across the blue haze of heat that hung on the meadows.
“Ah, no, not that!” she half moaned to herself.
“What then?” said he quietly.
Then she turned to him again, and in her eyes no less than in his shone the authentic fire. Whatever trouble was there, whatever perplexity, it paled in the brightness of that shining.
“Just this, dear Hugh,” she said—“that I ask you—oh, how feeble it seems!—I ask you to give me a little time, to let me think and determine. It is all so new and strange, and—and so wonderful. I ask you to go away now, but not in the way you meant. Thank you for your love for me—it is precious, so precious! But I had never thought of it, never guessed it till yesterday.”
Hugh’s mouth had suddenly gone quite dry. He tried to moisten his lips to speak, but could not, and it was but a whisper that came.
“You love me?” he asked.
“Ah! you mustn’t ask me any more now. I have had enough. I—there, go, dear. I want——”
And she threw herself down on the garden bench where they had sat yesterday and burst into a passion of sobbing.