"Do you understand me now?" asked Wilton, gravely, coming close to her, and resting one foot only on the fallen tree, while he bent to look into the sweet, pale face. "Have you read my letter?"
"Yes; many times. It has infinitely astonished me."
"Why?"
"That you should ask so great a stranger to share your life—your name. To be with you always—till death. Is it not unwise, hasty?"
"Many—most people would say so, who were not in love. I cannot reason or argue about it. I only know that I cannot face the idea of life without you. Nor shall anything turn me from my determination to win you, except your own distinct rejection."
"Is it possible you feel all this—and for me?" exclaimed Ella, stepping back and raising her great, deep, blue, wondering eyes to his.
"I loved you from the hour we first met," said Wilton, passionately. "For God's sake! do not speak so coldly. Are you utterly indifferent to me? or have you met some one you can love better?"
"Neither," she replied, still looking earnestly at him. "I never loved any one. I have often thought of loving, and feared it! it is so solemn. But how could I love you? I have always liked to meet you and speak to you, still I scarcely know you; and though to me such things are folly, I know that to you and to your class there seems a great gulf fixed between us—a gulf I never dreamed you would span."
"I do not care what the gulf, what the obstacle," cried Wilton, again possessing himself of her hand; "I only know that no woman was ever before necessary to my existence; high or low, you are my queen! Do not think I should have dared to express my feelings so soon, but for the enormous difficulty of seeing you—of meeting you. Then I feared that you might drift away from me. I am not wanting in pluck; but, by heaven! I never was in such a fright in my life as the other night when I began to speak to you."