His look of utter astonishment expelled my apathy, and when his arms were round me and he was showering kisses upon my face and hair, and whispering, "Marguerite, Marguerite, have you nothing else to say?" in an overwhelming torrent it came to me what I had to say, what I had to tell him. The reality of it suffocated me, I felt as though I were drowning. I could only cling to him murmuring his name.
"Dear love," he whispered at length, "say that you love me!"
"Love you!" I cried, finding speech. "Love you! Ah, Dimbie, it is not for you to ask such a question. It is I who must put it to you. Do you love me? Can you always love me—forever and ever, whatever happens to me? Whatever I am——"
I broke off. "Whatever I am," I repeated mechanically.
Again he looked at me, held my face away from his, and surprise and bewilderment chased across his countenance.
I could not meet the look in his eyes, and my own fell.
He took my hands in his and held them to his lips very tenderly.
"Love you as you are, whatever you are! Why of course, that is why I shall love you always, because you are Marguerite. You may grow blind and deaf, and old and feeble, but you will always be my Marguerite. That is the beautiful part, we shall always have each other—to the end. Aunt Letitia's was a lonely life and a lonely death. Only old Ann and I with her. No husband nor children, nor brothers nor sisters, no one very closely related; only I, a nephew, and an old servant." He settled himself on the grass at the side of the couch and leant his head against my knee. "But you and I will have each other for ever. But I am not going to talk of sad things—not that Aunt Letitia's death in itself was sad, for it was very peaceful and beautiful—but I want to talk of the delights of being home again, of sitting in our jolly little garden with my own dear wife, and of the said wife's stroking her husband's head." He raised his blue eyes to mine and pulled my hand down to his hair, and perforce I had to stroke it.
"I cannot tell him yet," I cried to myself. "We must have this beautiful hour together. Later on—perhaps when the dusk has fallen."
He sighed contentedly as my hand passed over his crisp, kinky hair, and took Jumbles, who was purring and arching his back, on to his knee.