‘Yet I don’t altogether mind it, since it is you, my dear, who have displaced the work; and yet the loss of time nearly distracts me, when I have neither the power to work nor the delight of your company.’
‘But your remedy! O, I cannot help guessing it! Yes; you are going away!’
‘Let us ascend the column; we can speak more at ease there. Then I will explain all. I would not ask you to climb so high but the hut is not yet furnished.’
He entered the cabin at the foot, and having lighted a small lantern, conducted her up the hollow staircase to the top, where he closed the slides of the dome to keep out the wind, and placed the observing-chair for her.
‘I can stay only five minutes,’ she said, without sitting down. ‘You said it was important that you should see me, and I have come. I assure you it is at a great risk. If I am seen here at this time I am ruined for ever. But what would I not do for you? O Swithin, your remedy—is it to go away? There is no other; and yet I dread that like death!’
‘I can tell you in a moment, but I must begin at the beginning. All this ruinous idleness and distraction is caused by the misery of our not being able to meet with freedom. The fear that something may snatch you from me keeps me in a state of perpetual apprehension.’
‘It is too true also of me! I dread that some accident may happen, and waste my days in meeting the trouble half-way.’
‘So our lives go on, and our labours stand still. Now for the remedy. Dear Lady Constantine, allow me to marry you.’
She started, and the wind without shook the building, sending up a yet intenser moan from the firs.
‘I mean, marry you quite privately. Let it make no difference whatever to our outward lives for years, for I know that in my present position you could not possibly acknowledge me as husband publicly. But by marrying at once we secure the certainty that we cannot be divided by accident, coaxing, or artifice; and, at ease on that point, I shall embrace my studies with the old vigour, and you yours.’