"I don't know. At least I ... Oh, I don't know. It may only be imagination!"
He sat down beside her. "Imagination!..." She looked at him very steadily, and he found himself remembering how beautiful he had thought her eyes were that day when he saw her for the first time. They were still very beautiful.
"I'm not sure," she said. "I don't know ... but I ... I think I'm going to have a baby!"
"Holy Smoke!"
"I don't know. I feel so stupid!..."
She had been smiling while she was telling this to him, but now she dismayed him by bursting into tears.
"Eleanor!" he exclaimed, not knowing what to say or to do, and she let herself subside into his arms and lay there, half laughing and half crying.
"I'm being a ... frightful ... fool," she said between sobs, "but I ... I can't help it!"
They sat together until the dusk had turned to darkness, holding each other and whispering explanations and hopes and fears. A queer sense of responsibility settled upon John, a feeling that he must bear burdens and be glad to bear them. Eleanor seemed to him now to be a very fragile and timid creature, turning instinctively to him for care and protection. Immeasureable love for her surged in his heart. This very dear and gentle girl, so full of courage and yet so full of alarm, had become inexpressibly precious to him. She had come to him in doubt and had entrusted her life to him, not certain that she cared for him sufficiently to be entirely happy with him. He had tried to make her happy, and slowly he had seen her liking for him growing into some sort of affection. Perhaps now she loved him as he loved her. Soon she would be the mother of a child ... his child!... How very extraordinary it seemed! A few months ago, Eleanor and he had been strangers to each other ... and now she was about to bear a child to him!
"I must work hard," he said to himself, and then to her, "Of course, you can't go back to Mr. Crawford. I'll write to my mother and tell her!"