"Kitty," he said, his voice somewhat uncertain for an instant as he looked at her downcast face—"Kitty, my dear, you must know that I love you. Now that I have said it, I should like to go on for ever saying 'I love you, I love you!' You are everything to me—everything to me," he repeated, with a lover's fond iteration. "Oh, my dear, tell me that you love me!"
Kitty raised her eyes.
"Listen to me a moment, Kitty," said Gilbert, who had seen the message she flashed to him, and was greatly encouraged thereby. "Let me tell you all that is in my heart."
The girl now looked at him, some wonder in her glance, as she asked herself if he had not said already all that was in his heart, but as he went on she saw what he meant.
"I love you better than life," he began, "but I am not sure that I have done right in saying to you what I have said. I had not intended——I was carried away ..." And he paused.
"What is it?" asked Kitty, and there was such childlike trust and innocence in the way she made this inquiry that he had to put strong compulsion on himself to keep from placing his arm round her waist and drawing her toward him.
"You have spoken two or three times to-day about your father," replied Gilbert, "and each time you gave me, without knowing it, a pang, because, Kitty dear, I am afraid that he may not think me good enough for you, not rich enough, not placed high enough, for you. I had intended to wait until he came before speaking to you—I suppose I ought to have asked his permission to address you first. Do you see, Kitty? But to-night—well, I found I could wait no longer, and so must tell you all that was in my heart. Your father may blame me, Kitty. He might say that you should see far more of life than you have before even thinking of marriage. Yet, Kitty, after all it rests with you. Kitty, Kitty, what do you say, my darling? I cannot help loving you—I can never cease to love you. Tell me, do you love me? Say you love me!"
And he put forth his hand with a gesture of entreaty.
Long before this Kitty's shyness had fallen from her, her maidenly hesitation had disappeared. She had a feeling that Gilbert Eversleigh had been fore-ordained her lover before the foundations of the earth were laid—so vast was the certainty that filled her mind. The very statement of the difficulty in which he found himself with regard to her father helped her inevitably to this conclusion. It was noble of him, she thought, to take this attitude, and if he had not been able to stick to it, was she the one to condemn him for it? No, indeed.
"You are more to me, Gilbert," she said, quietly but firmly, "than my father—than all the fathers in the world. You are everything to me, just as I am everything to you."