She had tried to make her meaning clear, by keeping herself a good way off, and looking at the mountains more than me, and speaking as if her words came one by one from some type-writer; until the thought of my mishap and long disablement brought her near. Then I saw how she was trembling, and withdrawing her hands to hide it, and striving to make her eyelids proof against the shower inside them. With that the power of my love arose, and I said, "Dariel, look at me."
"It is impossible any more, after all that I have done."
Even while she spoke she did the impossible thing to such effect that I partook of the miracle. It seemed to me, as I met that soft deep gaze of boundless love and hope, as if Heaven had now so gifted and endowed me with the richest wealth, that humble as my powers were, henceforth I could do anything.
"I am afraid, I am afraid," she whispered, as she saw my joy. "Love of my heart, it is not right that you should care for me any more. It is right for me to love you, and to be your slave for ever. But for you to hate me, to hate the Dariel you loved once, because she so requited you. Here you have been worse than dead, worse than dead for weeks and weeks, after saving all our lives! Through whom? Through me, that could not trust you, but measured you by my paltry self. But now I know all from that sly traitor who sent the letter to her wicked brother. Alas, how wicked I am, too, when he is dead, and she—oh, George, I ought to hate her, but I cannot, because of her misfortunes! Tell me, George, do you feel like that? Do you feel that you ought to hate me, because I have destroyed your poor, poor mind?"
"Well, perhaps I shall, when you have done it. But not till then, my Dariel. And I think that Dariel owes me something for her compliment to my intellect."
"Hush! My orders are to keep you perfectly quiet and stupid. I like that very much, because it appears so soft and easy. But I must not take advantage,—hush! You want to talk; it is not right."
She laid one sweet soft finger on my lips, and when I closed them, obedience had its due reward; such as is well known to those who have been true and faithful, through every doubt and trouble, to the one they love better than themselves.
"I am the master now," she said, "and I shall make the love to you, and you will have to put up with it; because you are so helpless, and because I have robbed you of all chance of doing it to me, when you could. But one thing I shall insist upon,—you must not want to know anything about yourself, or even me, or anything that you can think of, until your poor mind restores itself."
Then I said a thing worthy of Tom Erricker, "I will leave myself in Dariel's hands, if she will take me into her arms sometimes."