“I shall not let you go until you have promised that you will marry me,” he said.
“I cannot promise that, Stephen,” she said, so faintly that he scarcely heard her. “Thou knowest I cannot leave my father, and surely thou wouldst not be content to stay here in Zanah.”
“I could live here or anywhere else with you. Promise.”
“Nay, nay, I cannot,” she repeated.
“Will you pledge yourself to marry me when your conscience tells you that you are free?”
“It is in my heart to promise that to thee, Stephen, but during my vigil I have come to know that if thou shouldst live away from me out in the world thou mightst no longer love me. Nay, I will not bind thee. The only pledge I give thee is the pledge that I will love thee all my life.”
A furious knocking on the door made them remember the imprisoned watchers.
“If you refuse to go with me now what do you wish to do?” Stephen asked, coming back to the subject of his original errand.
“I want to wait until the Untersuchung, and I want thee to be patient until thou hearest what the elders say. I shall pray that I may be given to thee.”
“There is no danger of your repenting of love, is there, Walda?”