He stared at her still with all his great heart in his eyes—all of it that was not jumping in his throat like a baby rabbit.
He gazed down at her for another moment, then bent suddenly before her and took her hand and kissed it, and said huskily and in jerks—between the rabbit-kicks—
"You will think no ill of me—if I go—at once. I dare not stop——"
But she had gripped his hand and held it tight, and stood holding him, and her face shone and her eyes.
"Then—will you take me with you, Kenneth?"
"Take you with me?" Her rings cut into her next fingers under the fierceness of his sudden grip, and she could have sung aloud, for the grip came right from his heart and told his tale to her. "Do you mean it—Jean?"
"Surely."
And yet he had a doubt. You must bear with him. You see, he had been half inside the gates of death, and—well, the proceeding was distinctly out of the common run of things.
"Is it myself—or the work?" he asked almost fiercely. For the thought had flashed across him—and not unnaturally—that this was but one more result of the excitement of the meeting last night. She had been shaken out of her usual discretion and decorum, had probably lain awake all night, and——
But her eyes were steady as stars, and as bright, as she said—