“And love me a little always?”
“Love you? Oh, my darling!” The words choked him.
“It shall be as you say! It shall be always as you say!” She was clinging to him now. “I will do as you tell me! I will always—oh, but you mustn’t, you mustn’t,” between tears and smiles, for his arms were about her now, and the poor ineffectual stile had ceased to be even an equator. “But I must tell you. I love you more now, Clement, more, more because I can trust you. You are strong and will do what is right.”
“At your cost!” he cried, shaken to the depths—and he thought her the most wonderful, the bravest, the noblest woman in the world. “Ah, Jos, if I could bear it for you!”
“I will bear it,” she answered. “And it will not last. And see, I am not afraid now—or only a little! I shall think of you, and it will be nothing.”
Oh, but the birds were singing now and the brook was sparkling as it rippled over the shallows towards the deep pool.
Presently, “When will you tell him?” she asked; and she asked it, with scarce a quaver in her voice.
“As soon as I can. The sooner the better. This is Saturday. I will see him on Monday morning.”
“But isn’t that—market-day?” faintly. “Can you get away?”
“Does anything matter beside this?” he replied. “The sooner, dear, the tooth is pulled, the better. There is only, one thing I fear.”