"Do you—do you love anyone else—I mean any man?"
His rapidly indrawn breath came forth with almost an ejaculation. Flea's eyes sought his for part of a minute. Then slowly she shook her head, a shadow of a smile broadening her lips. With effort she lifted her arms and whispered:
"I don't love anyone else—that is, no man! Be ye sure that ye love me?"
Like an impetuous boy he gathered her up, caressing her hair, her eyes, her lips. With sudden passion he murmured:
"Fledra! Fledra dear!"
"I do love ye!" she whispered. "Oh, I do love ye every bit of the day, and every bit of the night, jest like I did when you came to the settlement and I saw ye on the shore!"
Hitherto she had not told him that she had seen him in Ithaca, and he did not understand her allusion to a former meeting. To his astonished look, she replied by a question.
"Don't ye remember one day you came to the settlement and asked the way to Glenwood?"
Horace conjured up a vision of a child of whom he had asked his road, and remembered, in a flashing glance at the girl in his arms, that he had inwardly commented upon the sad young face. He had noted, too, the unusual shade in her eyes, and now he wondered vaguely that he had not loved her then.
"I remember—of course I remember! Oh, I want you to say again that you love me, little dearest, that you love me very much!" His lips roved in sweet freedom over her face as he continued, "You're so young, so very young, to have a sweetheart; but if you could only begin to love me—in a few years we could be married, couldn't we?"