"Yes," she whispered.
"Are you sure?"
"Y-yes."
For a moment's exquisite silence she rested her flushed face against his shoulder, then lifted it, averted, and stepped aside, out of the circle of his arms. Head lowered, she stood there, motionless in the starlight, arms hanging straight; then, as he came to her, she lifted her proud little head and laid both her hands in his.
"Of those things," she said, "that a woman should be to the man she loves, and say to that man, I am ignorant.
Even how to speak to you—now—I do not know. It is all a dream to me—except that, in my heart, I know that I do love you. But I think that was so from the beginning, and after you have gone away I should have realized it some day."
"You darling!" he whispered. Again she surrendered to him, exquisite in her ignorance, passive at first, then tremulously responsive. And at last her head drooped and fell on his shoulder, and he held her for a little longer, then released her.
Trembling, she crept up the stairway to her room, treading lightly along the dark entry, dazed, fatigued, with the wonder of it all. Then, as she laid her hand on the knob of her bedroom door,
the door of her father's room opened abruptly.
"Molly?"