Austin dropped his hand. "Good God, Sylvia!" he said hoarsely; "don't you know by this time what I think of you?"
"Then you mean—that you want me to marry you?"
"No, no, no!" he cried. "Why are you so bound to misunderstand and misjudge me? I beg you not to ride by yourself, and you tell me I am 'dictating.' I go for months without hearing from you for fear of annoying you, and you accuse me of 'indifference.' I bring you a gift as a vassal might have done to his liege lady—and you shrink away from me in terror. I try to show you what manner of woman you really are, and you believe that I am displaying the same presumption which I have just condemned in my own brother. Are you so warped and embittered by one experience—a horrible one, but, thank Heaven, quickly and safely over with!—that you cannot believe me when I tell you that the best part of a decent man's love is not passion, but reverence? His greatest desire, not possession, but protection? His ultimate aim, not gratification, but sacrifice?"
He bent over her. She was sitting quite motionless, her head bowed, her face hidden in her hands; she was trembling from head to foot. He put his arm around her.
"Don't!" he said, his voice breaking; "don't, Sylvia. I've been rough and violent—lost my grip on myself—but it's all over now—I give you my word of honor that it is. Please lift your head up, and tell me that you forgive me!" He waited until it seemed as if his very reason would leave him if she did not answer him; then at last she dropped her hands, and raised her head. The moon shone full on her upturned face, and the look that Austin saw there was not one of forgiveness, but of something so much greater that he caught his breath before she moved or spoke to him.
"Are you blind?" she whispered. "Can't you see how I have felt—since Christmas night, even if you couldn't long before that? Don't you know why I just couldn't go away? But I thought you didn't care for me—that you couldn't possibly have kept away from me so long if you did—that you thought I wasn't good enough—Oh, my dear, my dear—" She laid both hands on his shoulders.
The next instant she was in his arms, his lips against hers, all the sorrow and bitterness of their lives lost forever in the glory of their first kiss.
CHAPTER XII
When, two days later, Sylvia and Sally left for New York, none of the Grays had been told, much less had they suspected, what had happened. A certain new shyness, which Austin found very attractive, had come over Sylvia, and she seemed to wish to keep their engagement a secret for a time, and also to keep to her plan of going away, with the added reason that she now "wanted a chance to think things over."
"To think whether you really love me?" asked Austin gravely.