"And you will answer all my questions?"
"All of them, even if the answer should bring a blush of shame to my cheek," he said.
"And if—if I asked you to give up something, to begin a new life, to forsake old friends, old associations?"
"I shall live only for you," he said.
Then for the first time she looked straight into his eyes. What was the question in them? She was waiting, for some answer—what was it?
"You must be lenient with me," he said. "When a man answers all a woman's questions, it is because he worships her, only because of that, and then he understands how poor a thing, how unworthy he is. I shall answer them all, you must be lenient and forgive."
She still looked at him, but did not speak.
"I may argue with you, use all the power I have to win your forgiveness, use all the depths of my love to show you that our way henceforth must be together. Be sure I shall not easily let you go. Rosmore was wrong, you shall be free to choose; but I will use every artifice I have to make you choose to stay with me. It has never seemed to me that words were necessary. Love came to me as the sunshine and the wind come, given to me, a free gift from Heaven. One moment I was without it, ignorant of it, and the next it was a part of my life. Before, to live had seemed a great thing, to be a man, to do a man's work was enough; afterwards, life could not be life without love. Rob me of love now, and you leave me nothing."
"When was the moment, Gilbert?"
"When I saw you shrinking from the crowd as it poured out of Newgate," he whispered.