“Oh,” she breathed, “I don’t know how to tell you! But I am so unhappy—and I have grown so anxious about you! I don’t see ... how I can bear it ... as we are.”...
Her heart beat against his so wildly, that she could have said no more if she had tried. But she had no need to try. For he said:—
“Would you marry me this summer, dear? It would make me very happy.... I have not dared to ask it.”
“I would marry you to-morrow.” Helen lifted her head, and “shame departed, shamed” from her sweet, wet face. “I would marry you to-day. I want to be near you. I want ... if anything—whatever comes.”
“Whatever comes,” he answered solemnly, “we ought to be together—now.”
Thus they deceived each other—neither owning to the tender fault—with the divine deceit of love.
Helen comforted herself that she had not said a word of threat or danger or escape, and that Bayard suspected nothing of the cloudburst which hung over him. He let her think so, smiling tenderly. For he knew it all the time; and more, far more than Helen ever knew.