And bowing slightly to him, she passed on, to go into the garden. There, in the morning, she had left the bushes and the fruit-trees with their buds all shut, and now they were clothed in tenderest green.
She looked at them with tranquil pleasure; and while she walked down the narrow gravel path, she thought to herself how soon she would have to leave them, never to see them more. But there was not a shade of regret in her meditations, and her heart, that had passed through so many storms, had come to a sudden calm.
Half an hour later, she heard Dr. Hansen's step on the pavement of the little court, which he crossed, and she saw that he was coming through the garden gate. She made an effort to conceal a gust of emotion that suddenly came over her, and she looked searchingly in his serious face.
"What news do you bring me? I hope we have not forgotten anything that may prove a hindrance to so simple a desire as mine is?--"
"Nothing," he answered gravely. "It is settled in the most formal manner, and all I have to do in this house in the capacity of lawyer, may be considered as definitively concluded. Will you forgive me, if I say that the lawyer has not succeeded in silencing the man?--who will speak, even though he has so much reason to fear that he will not find a hearing."
He paused, as if in expectation of some sign to interpret in his favor, or against him.
She said nothing, and his courage rose.
"Yon know how I feel;" he continued, "and after our recent conversation on Sunday evening, I certainly should not have presumed to molest you with another word that sounded hopeful. Only the day after, I ascertained from your brother-in-law, what I had already surmised with pain, that your reason for rejecting every suitor who presented himself, was because you felt no security that he sought you, not for your fortune, but for yourself.
"It was small consolation for me to know that it was not, in the first instance, any special aversion to myself, that had cut me off from all my hopes of happiness. What could I ever do to convince you of the bitter injustice of your distrust?--If my undeclared devotion has not proved it to you in all those years, what farther assurance of mine could ever convince you of it? But to-day you were so good as to take me into your confidence, and to allow me to look deeper into your heart, than would have been necessary for a simple affair of business. In my office I could not thank you; and here--will you take me for a madman, if I have not given up all hope, and venture to ask whether circumstances may not have arisen to induce you to change your mind? In me, you will never find a change."
She kept her eyes cast down. "Do not ask me now," she said, with quivering lips. "I have need of all my resolution to do what has to be done, and it has been sorely tried."