She drew back with agony in every line of her face.
"Would it be ... do you think ... supposing I went away, far away, and we were not to meet for a time, a long time—never to meet again—could you bring yourself to love him and marry him?"
Greta rose to her feet in agitation.
"Him—love him!—you ask me that—you!"
The girl's voice broke down into sobs that seemed to shake her to the heart's core.
"Greta, darling, forgive me; I was blind—I am ashamed."
"Oh, I could cry my eyes out!" she said, wiping away her tears. "Say you were only playing with me, then; say you were only playing; do say so, do!"
"I will say anything—anything but the same words again—and they nearly killed me to say them."
"And was this what you came to say?" Greta inquired.
"No, no," he said, lifted out of his gloom by the excitement; "but another thing, and it is easier now—ten times easier now—to say it. Greta, do you think if I were to leave Cumberland and settle in another country—Australia or Canada, or somewhere far enough away—that you could give up home, and kindred, and friends, and old associations, and all the dear past, and face a new life in a new world with me? Could you do it?"