“Oh,” said she.
There was a considerable pause before she asked him how long he thought it would be before the boat would return.
He declined to bind himself to any expression of opinion on the subject.
Then there was another pause, filled up only by the splash of something falling from the roof—by the wash of the water against the smooth rock.
“I wonder how it has come about that I am given a chance of speaking to you at last?” said he.
“At last?” said she, repeating his words in the same tone of inquiry.
“I say at last, because I have been waiting for such an opportunity for some time, but it did not come. I don’t suppose I was clever enough to make my opportunity, but now it has come, thank God.”
Again there was silence. He seemed to think that he had said something requiring a reply from her, but she did not speak.
“I wonder if you would believe me when I say that I love you,” he remarked.
“Yes,” she replied, as naturally as though he had asked her what she thought of the weather. “Yes, I think I would believe you. If you did not love me—if I was not sure that you loved me, I should be the most miserable girl in all the world.”