His face was much, much, brighter, and his eyes more kind.
"Have I said any harm--I would not for the world--I knew not it was harm."
"No harm," I said, "to think so ill of me! To believe, for a single moment, that because I am not so poor, I would go and forsake--at least, I mean, forget--any one I cared for!"
"Can I ever hope, if I serve you all my life, that you will ever care for me?"
"Don't you know I do?" And I burst into my violent flood.
When I came to myself, both his arms were round me, and I was looking up at his poor sick face, my hair quite full of marble chips, and he was telling me with glad tears in his eyes, which he never took from mine, how he cared for nothing now, not for all the world, not for glory or fur shame, so long as I only loved him.
"With all my heart and soul," I whispered, "him and no one else whatever, whether in life or death."
All the folly we went through I am not going to repeat, though I remember well every atom of it. Let the wise their wisdom keep, we are babes and sucklings. Neither of us had ever loved before, or ever meant to love again, except of course each other, and that should be for ever.
"One thing I must tell you, my own sweet love, and yet I fear to do it. But you are not like other girls. There is no one like you, nor has there ever been. I think you will not scorn me for another's fault."
"Of course I won't, my own pet Conny. What is this awful thing?"