"Then I am safe, for I am sure to prove it," he said, with a sigh of intense relief.
She looked at him again, and knew that he spoke as he felt. Yes, for her sake he would "march to death as to a festival."
"Now, then, will you be good and quiet and tell me news of my old neighbors at Wendover and Blue Cliffs?" she archly inquired.
"I do not think I can. I wish to sit here and look at you and think only of you. It would be a painful wrench to tear away my thoughts from you and employ them upon anything else. Let me sit here in my heaven!" he pleaded.
"Yes, love; but remember I am very anxious to know something about my dear friends, whom I have not heard from for a month. Can not you gratify me?" coaxed Mary Grey.
"I can not fix my mind upon them long enough to remember anything. You absorb it all," he answered, dreamily gazing upon her.
"But if I ask you questions surely you can answer them," said Mary Grey, who, though very anxious for information later than that afforded by Mrs. Wheatfield's letter, was not ill-pleased at the devotion which baffled her curiosity.
"Yes, I will answer any question you ask. That will not be so much of a wrench," he said.
"Then how is my dear friend, Emma Cavendish?" inquired the traitress.
"Well and happy, at Blue Cliffs," answered the lover.