"O, Ben Starr, were you born blind?" she said with a sob.
"Sally, am I mad or do you love me?" I asked, and the next instant, bending over as she looked up, I kissed her parted lips.
For a minute she was silent, as if my kiss had drawn her strength through her tremulous red mouth. Her body quivered and seemed to melt in my arms—and then with a happy laugh, she yielded herself to my embrace.
"A little of both, Ben," she answered, "you are mad, I suppose, and so am I—and I love you."
"But how could you? When did you begin?"
"I could because I would, and there was no beginning. I was born that way."
"You meant you have cared for me, as I have for you—always?"
"Not always, perhaps—but—well, it started in the churchyard, I think, when I gave you Samuel. Then when I met you again it might have been just the way you look—for oh, Ben, did you ever discover that you are splendid to look at?"
"A magnificent animal," I retorted.
She blushed, recognising the phrase. "To tell the truth, though, it wasn't the way you look," she went on impulsively, "it was, I think,—I am quite sure,—the time you pushed that wheel up the hill. I adored you, Ben, at that moment. If you'd asked me to marry you on the spot I'd have responded, 'Yes, thank you, sir,' as one of my great-grandmothers did at the altar."