"Then what was it you wished me to tell you, dearest Mary? Ask me plainly. I will tell you anything in the world that I know."
"Only this: Did you post those letters with great secrecy, taking extreme care that no one saw you do it?"
"My dearest, I took such care that I waited until the dead of night, when no one was abroad in the village, and I stole forth then, and, all unseen, dropped the letters into the night box."
"You darling! How good you are! What shall I ever do to repay you?" exclaimed the traitress, with well-acted enthusiasm.
"Only love me—only love me! That will richly repay me for all. Ah, only love me! Only love me truly and I will die for you if necessary!" fervently breathed the poor doomed young man, fondly gazing upon her, who, to gain her own diabolical end, was almost putting his neck into a halter.
"You foolish darling! Why, you would break my heart by dying! You can only make me happy by living for me," she said, with a smile.
"I would live for you, die for you, suffer for you, sin for you—do anything for you, bear anything for you, be anything for you!" he burst forth, in a fervor of devotion.
"There, there, dearest, I know you would! I know it all! But now tell me: Have you kept our engagement a profound secret from every human being, as I requested you to do?"
"Yes, yes, a profound secret from every human being, on my sacred word and honor! Although it was hard to do that. For, as I walked up and down the streets of Wendover, feeling so happy—so happy that I am sure I must have looked perfectly wild, as the people stared at me so suspiciously—I could scarcely help embracing all my friends and saying to them, 'Congratulate me, for I am engaged to the loveliest woman in the world, and I am the happiest man on earth!' But I kept the secret."
"You mad boy! You love too fast to love long, I doubt! After a month or two of married life you will grow tired of me, I fear," said Mary Grey, with mock gravity.