“So it would certainly strike any one hearing only of this,” said Daireen. “But it will only be for a month, and you will see the place.”
“I would rather remain seeing this place,” he said. “Seeing that hill above us.” She flushed as though he had told her in those words that he was aware of how often she had been looking up to that slope since they had been there together——
There was a long pause, through which the voices and laughter of the women at the river-bank were heard.
“Daireen,” said the man, who stood up bareheaded before her. “Daireen, that hour we sat up there upon that slope has changed all my thoughts of life. I tell you the life which you restored to me a month ago I had ceased to regard as a gift. I had come to hope that it would end speedily. You cannot know how wretched I was.”
“And now?” she said, looking up to him. “And now?”
“Now,” he answered. “Now—what can I tell you? If I were to be cut off from life and happiness now, I should stand before God and say that I have had all the happiness that can be joined to one life on earth. I have had that one hour with you, and no God or man can take it from me: I have lived that hour, and none can make me unlive it. I told you I would say no word of love to you then, but I have come to say the word now. Child, I dared not love you as I was—I had no thought worthy to be devoted to loving you. God knows how I struggled with all my soul to keep myself from doing you the injustice of thinking of you; but that hour at your feet has given me something of your divine nature, and with that which I have caught from you, I can love you. Daireen, will you take the love I offer you? It it yours—all yours.”
He was not speaking passionately, but when she looked up and saw his face haggard with earnestness she was almost frightened—she would have been frightened if she had not loved him as she now knew she did. “Speak,” he said, “speak to me—one word.”
“One word?” she repeated. “What one word can I say?”
“Tell me all that is in your heart, Daireen.”
She looked up to him again. “All?” she said with a little smile. “All? No, I could never tell you all. You know a little of it. That is the bond between us.”