'Well if I loved a girl,' she said, 'I'd make her listen.'
'I would have done that but Mrs Fuller saved you.'
'You might have written,' she suggested in a tone of injury.
'I did.'
'And the letter never came—just as I feared.'
She looked very sober and thoughtful then.
'You know our understanding that day in the garden,' she added. 'If you did not ask me again I was to know you—you did not love me any longer. That was long, long ago.
'I never loved any girl but you,' I said. 'I love you now, Hope, and that is enough—I love you so there is nothing else for me. You are dearer than my life. It was the thought of you that made me brave in battle. I wish I could be as brave here. But I demand your surrender—I shall give you no quarter now.
'I wish I knew,' she said, 'whether—whether you really love me or not?
'Don't you believe me, Hope?