"Yes! kiss me and I fly." He tried once more to draw her close, but still in vain.
"No, dearest," she whispered, and trembled. Yet she clutched his imprisoning fingers and kissed them. He hugged her hands to his breast.
"Oh, Hilary," she added, "I wish I could! But--don't you know why I can't? Don't you see?"
"No, my treasure, not any more. Why, Anna, you're Anna Kincaid now. You're my wed'--"
Her start of distress stopped him short. "Don't call me that,--my--my own," she faltered.
"But if you are that--?"
"Oh, I am! thank God, I am! But don't name the name. It's too fearfully holy. We're married for an emergency, love, an awful crisis! which hasn't come to you yet, and may not come at all. When it does, so will I! in that name! and you shall call me by it!"
"Ah, if then you can come! But what do we know?"
"We know in whom we trust, Hilary; must, must, must trust, as we trust and must trust each other."
Still hanging to his hands she pushed them off at arm's-length: "Oh, my Hilary, my hero, my love, my life, my commander, go!" And yet she clung. She drew his fingers close down again and covered them with kisses, while twice, thrice, in solemn adoration, he laid his lips upon her heavy hair. Suddenly the two looked up. The omnibuses were here in the grove.