"I know," Charlotte said again, and now she was smiling through tears at the friendly stars above her.
"Yes, you know," he answered, happily. "That's the wonderful thing to me—that you should know."
A little path wound through the park, as deserted as the street. He led her into this, and, pausing where a group of high-grown shrubs screened them from all possible passers-by, he spoke with all the passion he had hitherto restrained.
"Charlotte, are you my wife? Tell me so—in this!"
He laid one arm about her shoulders, his hand lifted her face as he stooped to meet it with his own. When he raised his head again it was to look, as she had looked, toward the stars.
"That was worth," he said tensely, "all the pain I have ever known." Then as he led her on he spoke again with an odd wistfulness.
"Dearest, I have talked about our love not needing words, and yet, I find I want to hear your voice after all. Will you tell me, in words, how it is with you? I want to hear!"
After a moment she answered him, softly, yet with a vibrant sweetness in her tone. "John Leaver, it is as you say. I have known, from the first, that I—must love you. You made me, in spite of myself. I couldn't—couldn't help it!"
He bent his head, with a low murmur of happiness. Then: "And I thought I could do without words!" he said.
For the first time in many days Charlotte's lips curved suddenly into the little provoking, arch smile which was one of her greatest charms.