Camilla gave a sharp sigh and turned round, her face was blurred with tears, she hardly looked young or pretty.
"I know what you are going to say," she said, "I know what you are going to ask me, but I am afraid to listen."
"Afraid?" he said, and his brows met; "afraid of what?"
"Oh, you don't know me," said Camilla, with a broken sound in her voice; "you think me pretty, you like me. Perhaps I fascinate you, but you don't know me. I ... I am not going to refuse to be your wife," she said, she spoke with her teeth half closed; "but I don't want any false pretences, I don't want you to imagine things about me that do not exist. I am full of faults, I am not a bit good. You don't know," she opened her eyes for a minute, and looked at him, "you don't know how un-good I am, and you ... you are so good. You will want to make me like yourself."
"God forbid," said Rupert Haverford.
He was so near to her now that he almost touched her. She was trembling with excitement.
"Oh! I don't mean that you would do it unkindly, only that you look at things differently. I am so afraid you will be disappointed in me, but ..." the tears were running down her cheeks, "I know one thing about you. I know that you are true, and that if you give your word it will be your bond." Her lips quivered. "The children," she said brokenly; and then she was lying with her face pressed down on his breast, and his arms were folded about her.
What he said she hardly heard, she was only conscious in that moment of a great, a wonderful relief. It was as though some gnawing pain that had fretted into her very soul had been lulled; that a beautiful rest had followed on the pain.
She closed her eyes, and she nestled nearer to him. Then, little by little, she came back to the reality, and her heart leapt in her throat, she tried to free herself, but those strong arms held her tightly. Some one was kissing her brow, and close beside her she could feel the quick beating of a strong heart.
Once she had said to herself, "He will love me too much."