"Don't you?"
Rhoda looked up at him in genuine surprise; but her eyes fell before the answering look they encountered, and she blushed from brow to chin.
"No; it all depends on you, Rhoda, whether I am glad of it to the bottom of my heart, or whether I give it all up as a thing not worth striving for."
There was a pause, which Rhoda broke at length, because the silence embarrassed her unendurably.
"Oh, I don't think it can depend upon me, Mr. Diamond," she said, speaking in a little quivering voice that was barely audible; whilst, at the same time, she hurriedly turned over the pages of "The Pilgrim's Progress" with her eyes fixed on them, although she assuredly did not see one letter. Diamond gently drew the book from her hand and took the hand in his own.
"Yes, Rhoda," he said—and, having once called her so, his lips seemed to dwell lovingly on the sound of her name—"I think you do know! You must know that, if I look forward hopefully and happily to anything in my future life, it is only because I have a hope that you may be able to love me a little. I love you so much."
She trembled violently, but did not withdraw her hand from his clasp. She sat quite still with downcast eyes, neither moving nor looking to the right or the left.
"Rhoda! Rhoda! Won't you say one word to me?"
"I'm trying—thinking what I ought to say,'" she answered, almost in a whisper.
"Is it so difficult, Rhoda?"