He took her by the arms and raised her to her feet. Holding her quite close, he looked down into her questioning eyes and said very seriously:
"You are suspicious, even of me, dearest. I want you. There is but one way for you to be at peace with yourself: shift your cares over to my shoulders. I will stand between you and everything that may come up to trouble you. We love one another. Why should we sacrifice our love for the sake of a shadow? For a week, dearest, I've been pleading with you; won't you end the suspense to-day—end it now—and say you will be my wife?"
The appeal was so gentle, so sincere, so full of longing that she wavered. Her tender blue eyes, lately so full of dread, grew moist with the ineffable sweetness of love, and capitulation was in them. Her warm, red lips parted in a dear little smile of surrender.
"You know I love you," she said tremulously.
He kissed the lovely, appealing lips, not once but many times.
"God, how I worship you," he whispered passionately. "I can't go on without you, darling. You are life to me. I love you! I love you!"
She drew back in his arms, the shadow chasing the light out of her eyes.
"We are both living in the present, we are both thinking only of it, Brandon. What of the future? Can we foresee the future? Dear heart, I am always thinking of your future, not my own. Is it right for me to bring you—"
"And I am thinking only of your future," he said gravely. "The future that shall be mine to shape and to make glad with the fulfilment of every promise that love has in store for both of us. Put away the doubts, drive out the shadows, dearest. Live in the light for ever. Love is light."
"If I were only sure that my shadows would not descend upon you, I—"