"I—shouldn't have thought you would remember me at all," she said, the touch of his hand upon her arm filling her with a sensation of strange gladness.
"On that afternoon I told you, I am sure I told you, how restful you were," Rupert continued, speaking with an eagerness that gave him an oddly boyish manner; "something in your personality rested me then, and I have never forgotten it. You rest me now," he added suddenly, his hand slipping from her arm, and folding itself over her hand. "I came here to-day, feeling as if the world were a sorry enough place, and I a poor fool who had messed up my life, and was at the end of my tether. But when I saw you, sitting here in the sunshine, I felt as if—some day—the sunlight might come back to my life."
"Could I—bring it back?" Her voice still shook, but she lifted her eyes bravely to look into his face, and he bent nearer to her, and gathered both her hands into his.
"Little Christina," he said. "I don't know whether it is fair, even to think of asking you to spend your fresh young life in bringing sunshine back to mine, but—because I am a selfish brute—because—I—want you—I am going to ask you what I believe I have no right to ask you. And yet—it was Margaret's thought, too—Margaret's wish," he added, under his breath.
"Aunt Margaret's wish!" the girl exclaimed. "That I—that you——" She broke off confusedly, trying instinctively to draw her hands from his, but feeling his clasp tighten over them.
"Shall I tell you what she said to me about you the very last time I saw her?" he asked. "I think she knew I was going to be very lonely, and she spoke of you. I have not forgotten the actual words she used; they came back to me just now, as I sat here beside you; she said: 'She would make a man who cared for her, a most tender and loving wife. She has a sweet, strong soul.'"
More and more vividly the colour deepened on Christina's face, and she did not answer, because speech at that moment was a physical impossibility. Only her hands lay passive in his grasp, she no longer tried to draw them away.
"I think Margaret knew—how I should learn to need you," Rupert went on, his voice vibrating along the girl's nerves, and sending little thrills of happiness through her whole being. "She understood how much you could help me, if you would."
"If I would?" she echoed, a tremulous gladness in her voice. "But—I—am so young, so ignorant, not a bit worthy of—of all you say," she ended incoherently.
"Could you some day learn to care for me, if I tried to make you care?" was his answer. "Could you—some day—care for an old fellow like me, who hasn't even the best of his life and love to offer you? Could you do that, little girl?"