Very unfair. Captain Bohun's right feeling had come back to him, and he could only assent to it. He began to feel a little ashamed of himself on more points than one.
"It shall never escape my lips, Ellen, whilst I breathe. Seeley's secret is safe for me."
Taking up the ring, he held it for a moment, as if examining the gold. Ellen rose and went outside. The interview was becoming a very conscious one. He caught her up near the cascade, took her right hand in his, and slipped the ring upon her third finger.
"How many times has it been off?" he asked.
"Never until to-day."
"Well, there it is again, Ellen. Cherish it still. I hope--that ere long----"
He did not finish, but she understood quite well what he meant. Their eyes met, and each read the impassioned love seated within the other; strangely pure withal, and idealistic as ever poet dreamed of. He strained the hand in his.
"Forgive my petulance, my darling."
Excepting the one sweet word and the lingering pressure of the hand; excepting that the variegated rose was transferred from his possession to hers, the interview had been wholly wanting in the fond signs and tokens that are commonly supposed to attend the intercourse of lovers. Captain Bohun had hitherto abstained from using them, and perhaps Heaven alone knew what the self-denial cost him. In his unusually refined nature he may have deemed that they would be unjustifiable, until he could speak out openly and say, Will you be my wife?
"What is your book, Ellen?" he asked, as she returned to take it up from the table.