Mark was painfully agitated, but he answered in a subdued tone, “I do not know. I only know what I am doing now, and do not see even into the near future. Neither can you. Let us give love for love, and I remain here, quieter than the waters of the pool, humbler than grass. I will do what you will, and what do you ask more. Or,” he added suddenly, coming nearer, “we will leave this place altogether....”
In a lightning flash the wide world seemed to smile before her, as if the gates of Paradise were open. She threw herself in Mark’s arms and laid her hand on his shoulder. If she went away into the far distance with him, she thought, he could not tear himself from her, and once alone with her he must realise that life was only life in her presence.
“Will you decide!” he asked seriously. She said nothing, but bowed her head. “Or do you fear your Grandmother?”
The last words brought her to her senses, and she stepped back.
“If I do not decide,” she whispered, “it is only because I fear her.”
“The old lady would not let you go.”
“She would let me go, and would give me her blessing, but she herself would die of grief. That is what I fear. To go away together,” she said dreamily, “and what then?” She looked up at him searchingly.
“And then? How can I know, Vera?”
“You will suddenly be driven from me; you will go and leave me, as if I were merely a log?”
“Why a log? We could separate as friends.”