He regarded her uneasily before he replied.
“Yes; you once said that, I know. But why return to that now?”
“And have you not been?”
He was silent.
“Your word,” she continued, “has been my law; what you have said I have believed. Have I done wrong?”
“Why are you letting these things trouble you now?” he asked impatiently.
“Because I know that when a woman gives herself wholly to the man she loves, it is common for her to lose him, and I have begun to feel that I am losing you.”
“I do not think I have given you any reason to feel that.”
She did not speak again immediately, but stood with her innocent blue eyes raised beseechingly to his face. Suddenly she took hold of his hands, and said—
“You told me that in the eyes of God we were man and wife, that no marriage ceremony could ever join us together more truly, that marriage really consisted in the union of heart and soul, not in the words of any priest—did you not? Was that true? Am I still your little wife?”