“How should I? From your many messages these last twenty months?”
Morton felt vexed and Maggie observed and enjoyed his perplexity. “Come,” she said, “it is wearing on to dinner-time and I know what soldiers’ appetites are. We had some soldier visitors who left us nothing. We will go home.”
“Not until I have said what I want to tell you,” he said warmly.
“Oh, you have something to tell me! You must have. Soldiers and hunters have always long stories to tell about themselves. Keep them until you have had some of our backwoods fare.”
“Tease me no more, Maggie; my heart is yours whether you accept it or not. That I have been neglectful and ungrateful I confess. How much I owe you I did not know until some months after I saw you.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“I owe you my life.”
“You owe it to Hemlock; not to me.”
“I know all, brave heart. I met Mrs Scott at Kingston and she told me of your journey to Oka, but for which Hemlock would never have known of my peril. As she spoke, the smouldering love I had for you burst into flame and your image has never been absent from my mind an hour since. When my comrades caroused and spoke loosely, I thought of you and turned away and tried to live worthily of you.”
“You know how to praise yourself.”