She began to sob convulsively.
“Don't, darling; don't! Don't make it so hard for me,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Oh, do let me cry,” she wailed. “It was so hard for me to hold back all the time we were at table. I must cry, or my heart will break. Oh, my own dear Phil, what if I should never see you again! Oh! Oh!”
“Nonsense, darling,” he said, crowding down the lump that seemed like iron in his throat, and making a desperate effort to keep his voice steady. “You will see me again, never doubt it. Don't I tell you I am coming back? The South cannot hold out much longer. Everybody says so. I shall be home in a year, and then you will be my wife, to be God's Grace to me all the rest of my life. Our happiness will be on interest till then; ten per cent, a month at least, compound interest, piling up every day. Just think of that, dear; don't let yourself think of anything else.”
“Oh, Phil, how I love you!” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck in a passion of tenderness. “Nobody is like you. Nobody ever was. Surely God will not part us. Surely He will not. He is too good.”
“No, dear, He will not. Some day I shall come back. It will not be long. Perhaps I shall find you waiting for me in this same little summer-house. Let us think of that. It was here, you know, we found out each other's secret that day.”
“I had found out yours long before,” she said, faintly smiling.
“Time 's up, Phil.” It was Mr. Morton's voice calling to them from the piazza.
“I must go, darling. Good-by.”
“Oh, no, not yet; not quite yet,” she wailed, clinging to him. “Why, we have been here but a few moments. It can't be ten minutes yet.”