“But you kissed me for greeting.”
“Nay, sir, ’twas you kissed me,” she said, with a shimmer of laughter over her face like sunlight upon dancing water.
“Listen, sweetheart,” he said, coming very close to her, his head swimming with the soft intoxication of her presence; “we may have but these few minutes together, but I want you to know that it was the thought of you that kept me alive in that vile prison and finally nerved me to escape. But for you,—for the fierce longing to see you, to touch you,—I should have stayed there and died like a rat.”
“Eustace did all he could,” she broke in, “but our letter was long in reaching him, for General Clinton had sent him to help repel the attack on Rhode Island, and he did not return to New York for more than a month.”
“I know, and some day I shall thank him; but he could not have effected my release or exchange, only bought a little favour from my hard jailers, and I cared not for that kind of obligation from one of his name. It was you—the memory of your dear face—that steeled my nerves and broke my bonds. There is a species of numbing despair that comes upon a man sometimes over which a great love alone can triumph.”
She put her hand upon his arm, for there was a pathos in his voice that touched her deeply; “Richard, I wish I loved you.”
“And so you shall, and do,” he cried; and instantly the tender spell upon her was broken, for in his tone and manner was the old arrogance and sureness that she so much resented. He felt the change, and said pleadingly, “The fisherwoman who rescued me said at parting, ‘Tell your Joscelyn to use you well.’ Are you so soon forgetting her injunction?”
“Nay; she was a good woman, and I shall pray for her.”
“Love me instead—’twill be truer gratitude.”