She hung her head, passion-worn, and he heard her ask:
“Do you love me?”
He knelt at her feet and pressed her joined hands against his heart.
“Do I love you? Do you know what it has cost me to refuse to take your life and make it part of mine?”
“You do seem to love me, Bernard.” She stroked the hair upon his forehead, and put it back with soft woman’s touch. Her voice was low and caressing; moisture made her eyes large. “You will not fail me? You will still love me, till I can make myself free?”
“And you?”
“Do I speak and act as if my love were a thing that will easily pass?”
“That is well and wisely spoken,” he returned, smiling up at her. “That is better in my eyes than if you had vowed to love me for ever. We cannot vow love; we can only say that we love with all the strength of our being, and silently feel that it is not a thing of brief life. I shall never ask you to promise to love me, only to say that you do.”
“But that is almost as if you feared.”
“For you, or for myself?”