I bowed my head and paused, not knowing how to begin.
“How can I serve you, who, I fear, have been ill served?” she went on with a little smile as though she found amusement in my confusion.
“In one way only,” I exclaimed, “by giving yourself in marriage to me. For that I seek, no less.”
Now her fair face that had been pale became stained with red and she let her eyes fall as though she were searching for something among the rushes that strewed the floor.
“Hearken before you answer,” I continued. “When first I spoke with you on that bloody day at Hastings and you had but just come to womanhood, I loved you and swore to myself that I would die to save you. I saved you and we kissed and were parted. Afterwards I tried to put you out of my heart, knowing that you were set far above me and no meat for such as I, though still for your sake I wooed no other woman in marriage. The years went by and fortune brought us together again, and lo! the old love was stronger than before. I know that I am not worthy of you who are so high and good and pure. Still——” and I stopped, lacking words.
She moved uneasily and the red colour left her cheeks as though she had been suddenly pained.
“Bethink you,” she said with a touch of hardness in her voice, “can one who lives the life I live and keeps my company, remain as holy and unstained as you believe? If you would gather such a lily, surely you should seek it in a country garden, not in the reek of London.”
“I neither know nor care,” I answered, whose blood was all afire. “I know only that wherever you grow and from whatever soil, you are the flower I would pluck.”
“Bethink you again; an ugly slug might have smeared my whiteness.”
“If so the honest sun and rain will recover and wash it and I am a gardener who scatters lime to shrivel slugs.”