The moment was not without embarrassment to me—perhaps to both of us. No profession had ever passed between us, no assurance, not a word of love. Although I loved Maümee with all my heart’s strength, although I now felt certain that she loved me, there had been no mutual declaration of our passion. The situation was a peculiar one, and the tongue felt restraint.
But words would have been superfluous in that hour. There was an electricity passing between us—our souls were en rapport, our hearts in happy communion, and each understood the thoughts of the other. Not all the words in the world could have given me surer satisfaction that the heart of Maümee was mine.
It was scarcely possible that she could misconceive. With but slight variation, my thoughts were hers. In all likelihood, Haj-Ewa had carried to her ears my earnest declaration. Her look was joyful—assured. She did not doubt me.
I extended my arms, opening them widely. Nature prompted me, or perhaps passion—all the same. The silent signal was instantly understood, and the moment after, the head of my beloved was nestling upon my bosom.
Not a word was spoken. A low fond cry alone escaped her lips as she fell upon my breast, and twined her arms in rapturous compression around me.
For some moments we exchanged not speech; our hearts alone held converse.
Soon the embarrassment vanished, as a light cloud before the summer sun: not a trace of shyness remained; and we conversed in the confidence of mutual love.
I am spared the writing of our love-speeches. You have yourself heard or uttered them. If too common-place to be repeated, so also are they too sacred. I forbear to detail them.
We had other thoughts to occupy us. After a while, the transport of our mutual joys, though still sweet, assumed a more sober tinge; and, half-forgetting the present, we talked of the past and the future.
I questioned Maümee much. Without guile, she gave me the history of that long interval of absence. She confessed, or rather declared—for there was no coquettish hesitation in her manner—that she had loved me from the first—even from that hour when I first saw and loved her: through the long silent years, by night as by day, had the one thought held possession of her bosom. In her simplicity, she wondered I had not known of it!