'Thank you,' said Larry. 'The candle is out?'
'Yes, the wind has made it out (extinguished it).'
'My left hand is sound. Come on that side.'
She did as he asked.
'And this,' he said, 'is the side where my heart is. Honor, I'm very sorry I did not follow your advice. I am sorry now for many things. I want you to forgive me.'
'I have nothing to forgive.'
'Lean over me. I want to whisper. I don't want the fellows to hear.'
She stooped with her face near his. Then he raised his uninjured arm, put it round her neck, and drew her cheek to his lips, and kissed her. 'Honor! dear Honor! I love no one! no one in the world but you! And I love you more than words can say.'
Did she kiss him? She did not know herself. A light, then a darkness, were before her eyes. What time passed then? A second or a century? She did not know. A sudden widening of the world to infinity, a loss of all limitations—time, space—an unconsciousness of distinction, joy, pain, day, night, a loss of identity—was it she herself, or another?
Then a wakening as from a trance, with tingling veins, and dazed eyes, and whirling brain, and fluttering heart, and voice uncontrolled, as from the cottage door, down the steps, and from the well, up the lane came simultaneously the rabble of boys and men.