“Jane,” he said gently and steadily, “if you were a man and in my place—I mean in my predicament—would you go so far as to ask the girl you love better than anything in all the world to marry you?”
“I don’t know just what you mean.”
“I mean, supposing they find my father out there in the swamp and there are indications that he met with foul play, and I stand the chance of being accused—”
“Don’t be silly,” she cried.
“Well—would you ask her?”
“There couldn’t be any harm in asking her. She could refuse you, you know.”
“That’s so. She could, couldn’t she. I—I hadn’t thought of that. Still you said you were going to marry the first man who asks you.”
“Yes, Oliver, I am—but, of course, I am expecting the man I love to ask me.”
“There’s the gypsy’s prophecy,” he murmured thickly. “It—it may come true, Jane.”
“It—it cannot come true,” she cried. “It cannot, Oliver.”