Marion entered at last and stood beside him. He neither took her hand nor looked at her.
‘When I told you to-day that I loved you,’ he said, ‘I ought to have told you that I am very poor.’
‘I know it,’ she said.
‘But I am poorer even than you know. I am not in Mr. Quinn’s employment any more. I have no settled income, and only a prospect of earning a very small one.’ He paused. ‘I shall have to go away from Ballymoy. I must live in Dublin. I do not think it is fair to ask you to marry me. I shall have no more to live upon than——’
She moved a step nearer to him and laid her hand on his arm.
‘Look at me,’ she said.
He raised his eyes to her face, and saw again there, as he had seen in church, the wonderful shining of love, which is stronger than all things and holds poverty and hardship cheap.
‘Keep looking at me still,’ she said. ‘Now tell me: Do you really think it matters that you are poor? Do you think I care whether you have much or little? Tell me.’
He could not answer her, although he knew that there was only one answer to her question.
‘Do you think that I love money? Do you doubt that I love you?’