"I understand more than you think," she replied, becoming calm again, and letting her hands fall into her lap. "I am going to speak quite plainly. You love me, Ben—ah, don't I know it!" she cried, with a sudden burst of passion. "I have seen it in your eyes these many days. I have heard it in your voice. I have felt it welling out from your great heart. It has been sweet to me—so sweet! You can not know, no man ever could know, how that love of yours has filled my soul and my heart until there was room for nothing else in the whole wide world!"
"You love me!" he said wonderingly.
"If I had not known that, do you think I would have endured a moment's hesitation after you had seen the objectionable features of my life? Do you think that if I had the slightest doubts of your love, I could now understand why you hesitate? But I do, and I honour you for it."
"You love me!" he repeated.
"Yes, yes, Ben dear, I do love you. I love you as I never thought to be permitted to love. Do you want to know what I did that second day on the Rock—the day you first showed me what you really were? The day you told me of your old home and the great tree? It was all so peaceful, and tender, and comforting, so sweet and pure, that it rested me. I felt, here is a man at last who could not misunderstand me, could not be abrupt, and harsh, and cruel. I said to myself, 'He is not perfect nor does he expect perfection.' I shut my eyes, and then something choked me, and the tears came. I cried out loud, 'Oh, to be what I was, to give again what I have not! O God, give me back my heart as it once was, and let me love!' Yes, Ben dear, I said 'love.' And then I was not happy any more all day. But God answered that prayer, Ben dear, and we do love one another now, and that is why we can look at things together, and see what is best for us both."
"You love me!" he exclaimed for the third time.
"And now, dear, we must talk plainly and calmly. You have seen what my family is."
"I don't know, Mary, that I can make you understand at all," began Bennington helplessly. "I can't express it even to myself. Our people are so different. My training has been so different. All this sort of thing means so much to us, and so little to you."
"I know exactly," she interrupted. "I have read, and I have lived East. I can appreciate just how it is. See if I can not read your thoughts. My family is uneducated. If it becomes your family, your own parents will be more than grieved, and your friends will have little to do with you. You have also duties toward your family, as a family. Is that it?"
"Yes, that is it," answered he, "but there are so many things it does not say. It seems to me it has come to be a horrible dilemma with me. If I do what I am afraid is my duty to my family and my people, I will be unhappy without you forever. And if I follow my heart, then it seems to me I will wrong myself, and will be unhappy that way. It seems a choice of just in what manner I will be miserable!" he ended with a ghastly laugh.