"Marian, have I done anything to forfeit your love?"
"O no, no."
"Then why do you say these things to me? Do you want to break my heart?"
"Would it break your heart if I were to recall my promise, Gilbert?"
"Yes, Marian," he answered gravely, drawing her suddenly to him, and looking into her face with earnest scrutinising eyes; "but if you do not love me, if you cannot love me—and God knows how happy I have been in the belief that I had won your love long ago—let the word be spoken. I will bear it, my dear, I will bear it."
"O no, no," she cried, shocked by the dead whiteness of his face, and bursting into tears. "I will try to be worthy of you. I will try to love you as you deserve to be loved. It was only a fancy of mine that it would be better for you to be free from all thoughts of me. I think it would seem very hard to me to lose your love. I don't think I could bear that, Gilbert."
She looked up at him with an appealing expression through her tears—an innocent, half-childish look that went to his heart—and he clasped her to his breast, believing that this proposal to set him free had been indeed nothing more than a girlish caprice.
"My dearest, my life is bound up with your love," he said. "Nothing can part us except your ceasing to love me."