"Then you don't——"
"No, indeed I don't."
"Oh, Naomi, what am I to say? In that letter I said it all—when I had no hope in my heart. And now——"
"And now you have called that letter awful nonsense, and yourself an idiot for writing it!"
She was smiling at him—her old, teasing smile—across the gap between their horses. But his eyes were full of tears.
"Oh, Naomi, you know what I meant!"
"And I suppose it has never occurred to you what I mean?"
He stared at her open-eyed.
"Will you marry me?" he blurted out.
"We'll see about that," said Naomi, as he took her hand and they rode onward with clasped fingers. "But I'll tell you what I am on to do. I'm on to put Taroomba in the market this very day, and to back you for all that it fetches. After that there's Europe—your mother—Milan—and anything you like, my dear fellow, for the rest of our two lives."