'No, no,' she returned hurriedly; 'you know it is not.'
'And you do not love any one else?'
'No, Richard,' still more faintly.
'Then I will not despair,' and as he spoke there rushed upon him a sudden conviction, from whence he knew not, that one day this girl whom he was wooing so earnestly, and who was silencing him with such brief sweet replies, should one day be his wife; that the beauty, and the great soul, and the sad yearning heart should be his and no other's; that one day—a long distant day, perhaps—he should win her for his own.
And with the conviction, as he told Mildred long afterwards, there came a settled calm, and a wonderful strength that he never felt before; the world, his own world, seemed flooded over with this great purpose and love of his; and as he stood there before her, almost stooping over, and yet not touching her, there came a vivid brightness into his eyes that scared Ethel.
'Of what are you thinking, Richard?' she said almost tremblingly.
'Nay, I must not tell you.'
Should he tell her? would she credit this strange prophecy of his? dimly across his mind, as he stood there before her, there came the thought of a certain shepherd, who waited seven years for the Rachel of his love.
'No, I will not tell you; dear, give me your hand,' and as she gave it him—wondering and yet fearful—he touched it lightly and reverently with his lips.
'Now I must go. Some day—years hence, perhaps—I shall speak of this again; until then we are friends still, is it not so?'