If she put more of the spirit in that song than into the others it was not because she felt its pertinence to the present status of her love. But through the wakeful night, and all the day long till Rutledge's note had come, the words of that Good-bye had come and gone through her brain with passionate realism:
"Falling leaf and fading tree,
Lines of white on a sullen sea,
Shadows rising on you and me—"
her heart had sung its "good-bye for ever" with all the smothered passion of renunciation. So, in the very moment of blissful waiting for the telling of his love, she could sing to Rutledge with all the wildness of farewell which so short a time since had wrung her spirit.
She struck the last chord softly, and, after holding down the keys till the strings were dumb, dropped her hands in her lap. She did not look up, but she knew that Rutledge's gaze was upon her. She waited for a space unspeaking, without lifting her eyes—and realized that she had waited too long.... The silence was eloquent; and with every moment became more significant. She tried to look up, but could not. She knew that the situation had gotten beyond her in that careless ten seconds, and that if she looked up now she was lost.... She sat as if under a spell—and waited for Rutledge to move or to speak.... After an age he was coming toward her.... And he was so very slow in coming. Her heart was thumping suffocatingly, her breathing in suspense.... He did not speak as he came to her.... She felt he was very near.... Still unspeaking—was he going to take her in his arms? ... Her head drooped lower over the keyboard....
Oh, why did he not take her in his arms.
"Elise, I love you. I've always loved you."
Elise's eyes were upon the idle hands in her lap; and her heart had stopped to listen. Rutledge's sentences were broken and jerky. She had never heard him speak in that fashion.
"I've loved you always, Elise, and once I was rash enough to think—you loved me. My presumption was fitly punished.... Now I have only—hope. In the last few months you—have been so—gracious that—I have been led to think you—wait, wait till I have done—so gracious that I have been led to think—not that you love me, but at least that I—do not excite your antipathy—as for a long time it seemed.... So now I have only hope—but such a hope, Elise—a hope that is—beyond words, for my love is such. My love is—I love you, Elise—I love you as—as my father loved my mother."
Elise slowly raised her eyes to his. There was no smile upon her face, but as she turned it to him it was ineffably sweet, and a smile was in her heart. But she was startled by his look. His was not the face of a lover, whether triumphant, despondent, hopeful or militant. She did not know that he had not been able to banish his mother from his thought for a waking moment since he parted with her at her mother's bed-side the night before.
"Will you—be my wife, Elise?"