By this time Craig was standing before her, his face deadly pale. When she came to the end of her words, he said, in a voice low, sweet, and thrilling with emotion—
‘Ah, if you only knew! Do not make me forget myself. You do not guess what you are doing.’
‘What am I doing? What is there to know, but that you tell me easily to go? She was struggling with the tears she was too proud to let him see.
He put his hands resolutely behind him, looking at her as if studying her face for the first time. Under his searching look she dropped her eyes, and the warm colour came slowly up into her neck and face; then, as if with a sudden resolve, she lifted her eyes to his, and looked back at him unflinchingly.
He started, surprised, drew slowly near, put his hands upon her shoulders, surprise giving place to wild joy. She never moved her eyes; they drew him towards her. He took her face between his hands, smiled into her eyes, kissed her lips. She did not move; he stood back from her, threw up his head, and laughed aloud. She came to him, put her head upon his breast, and lifting up her face said, ‘Kiss me.’ He put his arms about her, bent down and kissed her lips again, and then reverently her brow. Then putting her back from him, but still holding both her hands, he cried—
‘Not you shall not go. I shall never let you go.’
She gave a little sigh of content, and, smiling up at him, said—
‘I can go now’; but even as she spoke the flush died from her face, and she shuddered.
‘Never!’ he almost shouted; ‘nothing shall take you away. We shall work here together.’
‘Ah, if we could, if we only could,’ she said piteously.