"So soon as ever you like," she said. "I hope 'tisn't too far away from everybody."
"Not so far as I could wish; but far enough. The ruins be old miners' works; and we'll have a shippen and a dog-kennel and all complete, I promise you."
For a long time he talked of his hopes and plans, but she came not directly into them. It seemed that her help was hardly vital to the enterprise. At last she brought the matter back to the present; and she spoke in tones that might have touched the stone she sat on.
"I'll try so hard to make you a good wife, David."
He started and became dimly conscious of the moment and the mighty thing that had happened to him in it.
"I know that right well. Too good for me every way. Too gentle and soft and beautiful. I'll be tremendous proud of you, Madge. And I'll do my share, and work early and late for you, and lay by for you, and lift you up, perhaps, in ten years or so to have a servant of your own, and a horse and trap of your own, and everything you can wish."
"I wish for you to love me always, always, always--nothing but that."
"And so I shall, and the best love be what swells the balance at the bank quickest. Now I know you can take me, I feel as if I should like to get up off this rock this instant moment and go away and begin working like a team of horses for 'e."
"Don't go away yet. Think what this is to me--so much, much more than it can be to you."
"'Tis everything in the world to me," he said solemnly. "You little know how you've been on my mind. My folk will tell you now, no doubt, how it has been with me. That glowering and glumping I've been--not a word to throw at man or woman. But they'll see a different chap to-night!"