“I am very glad,” he said, gazing at her thoughtfully, and still speaking in his slow and deliberate way. “I was afraid that perhaps you had money of which I did not know. But you will say ‘yes’?”
“No; impossible. Are you blind? Look at me.”
“I might say, ‘Look at me,’” he retorted, with a frank, honest laugh, which lit up his countenance pleasantly. “I wish you could look at me as I do at you, and see there something that you could love. Yes,” he said, his genuine passion making him speak fluently and well; “for all these long, long months, Mary, I have always had your sweet, earnest eyes before me, and your clever, bright face. I have seemed to listen to your voice, and sometimes I have been sad as I have asked myself what a woman could find in me to love.”
“Ah!” ejaculated the trembling girl.
“And I’ve felt that, when you have said all those many sharp, hard things to me, that they were not quite real, and when your words have been most cruel, I’ve dared to fancy that your eyes seemed to be sorry that your tongue could be so bitter.”
“Mr Trevithick, pray!”
“And then I’ve hoped and waited, and thought of what you were.”
“Yes,” said Mary bitterly, as she made a gesture with one hand.
“Bah!” he cried, “what of that? An accident when you were a child. I would not have you different for worlds. I want those two dear eyes to look into mine, true and trustful and clever. You, to whom I can come home from my work for help and counsel, to be everything to me—my wife. Mary dear, in my slow and clumsy way I love you very dearly, and your cousin’s wedding has brought it all out. I didn’t think I could make love like that.”
He took her other hand, and gazed at her very fondly as she stood by his side, with the tears streaming down her cheeks.