Gertrude bowed her head and covered her face with her hands.
He continued: "All that can be said, except how truly and devotedly I love you, is said in this letter--the last message of your father, of my best friend. There is nothing in England for which we care: we have no ties there; we are bound to each other only by ties of love and sorrow in all the world. No one knows, no one can ever know, what that unhappy man was to you and to me. Will you let me try to make you forgive and forget it all in a happier marriage? Ours is an exceptional case. The world would condemn us, if the world knew all it could, which would be only half the truth; we know all the truth, and are free from self-condemnation. Say yes, Gertrude; not to me only, remember, but to him whom we have lost; and we shall never see England any more, or part again in this world."
Gertrude made him no answer in words. Her head was still bowed, and her eyes hidden by one hand; but she placed the other in his, and he knew that she was won.
Their marriage took place at Berne, and they are lost in the crowd.