“Yes”—almost fiercely—“but—but your folks—off there—will they let you stay?”
“I have no folks, Nella-Rose. I’m lonely and poor—at least I was until I found you! The hills have given me—everything; I mean to serve them well in return. I want you for my wife, Nella-Rose; we’ll make a home—somewhere—it doesn’t matter; it will be a shelter for our love and—” He stopped short. Reality and conventions made a last vain appeal. “I don’t want you ever again to go out of my sight. You’re mine and nothing could make that different—but” (and this came quickly, desperately) “there must be a minister somewhere—let’s go to him! Do not let us waste another precious day. When he makes you mine by his”—Truedale was going to say “ridiculous jargon” but he modified it to—“his authority, no one in all God’s world can take you from me. Come, come now, sweetheart!”
In another moment he would have had her in his arms, but she held him off.
“I’m mighty afraid of old Jim White!” she said.
Truedale laughed, but the words brought him to his senses.
“Then you must go, darling, until White returns. After I have explained to him I will come for you, but first let me hold you—so! and kiss you—so! This is why—you must go, my love!”
She was in his arms, her lifted face pressed to his. She shivered, but clung to him for a moment and two tears rolled down her cheeks—the first he had ever seen escape her control. He kissed them away.
“Of what are you thinking, Nella-Rose?”
“Thinking? I’m not thinking; I’m—happy!”
“My—sweetheart!” Again Truedale pressed his lips to hers.