He said, presently, in a strained voice, "You know what I have been asking. Does that mean yes?"
She did not speak. The moon was up above the trees, yellow now. She remembered a great broad voice, singing:
"Low hangs the moon. It rose late.
It is lagging-O I think it is heavy with love, with love"
With a passion that had broken away at last, the boy's hands took possession of her. He kissed her mouth, hotly, and then again; drew back gasping and stared into her small pale face with burning eyes. Her head turned a little away from him.
"… Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me
My mate back again if you only would,
For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.
O rising stars!…"
The languor was gone. She shivered and sat erect, he watching her in an agony of apprehension. She looked slowly round at him.
"You haven't answered!" His voice broke over that into a sob. "Will you marry me, Mary?"
"I don't know," she said dully, like one struggling out of a dream. "I will if I can. I meant to for a while, I think. But …"
He leaped to the ground and stood facing her with clenched hands. "I ought to be shot," he said. "I'm not fit to touch you—a white thing like you. I didn't mean to. Not like that. I meant …"
She stared for an instant, totally at a loss for the meaning—the mere direction of what he was trying to say. Then, slipping down from the branch, she took him by the arms. "Don't!" she cried rather wildly. "Don't talk like that! That's the last impossibility. Listen. I'm going to tell you why."