“Because I dared to hope that the time might come when I could speak to you as I do now. You know how I love you, and—forgive me for saying what I do—you know how my happiness is in your hands. Tell me to be patient even now, and I will wait.”
Her wild fixed look intensified as she listened to his impassioned prayer, for she saw only the face of her father as she had seen him last in life.
“I hardly dare to say the words,” he went on; “it seems like putting pressure on one whom I want to love me of herself, to make me happy by her own gentle confession; but I must speak now, even if it gives you pain. Claude, dearest, it was his wish. Tell me you will be my wife.”
He uttered his last sentence or two in a hesitating whisper.
“You heard what I said, dearest?” he whispered.
“Yes—yes,” said Claude dreamily.
“You will not hold me off longer. Claude, dearest, what can I say to move you? Is it to be always thus?”
She looked at him wildly for a few moments, and he was about to speak again, but her lips moved, and she said slowly—
“You say it would make you happy?”
“Happy?” he exclaimed passionately, “oh, if I had but words to tell you all.”