"Don't let's worry about that yet, dear, as everything is settled splendidly and——"
But Leonie pulled away and stood facing him with her hands in his against his heart.
"Do you really love me?"
The whisper was almost lost in the tumult of the breakers beneath.
"Love you, Leonie, love you!"
"What would you forgive me through love?"
"Forgive you! Everything! Dishonour could not touch you, and everything else I should forgive!"
Leonie tried to speak as she looked past him to the little green track between the downs which led to the world, and all it contained for her; and he, obtuse male, content in the plans he had mapped out entirely to his own satisfaction, and having blissfully taken the girl's consent to the programme for granted, failed to read the agony written across her face in capital letters.
"Tell me that you will be content, dear. I'm rich enough, but nothing compared with—oh! tell me, what do you like—what do you want—what do you really care for!"
She freed her hands and turned to look out to sea, where the day had been born in agony upon a bed of sullen, unbroken water.