‘Then how can you refuse the only condition on which I can stay, without ruin to my purpose and scandal to your name? Dearest, agree to my proposal, as you love both me and yourself!’
He waited, while the fir-trees rubbed and prodded the base of the tower, and the wind roared around and shook it; but she could not find words to reply.
‘Would to God,’ he burst out, ‘that I might perish here, like Winstanley in his lighthouse! Then the difficulty would be solved for you.’
‘You are so wrong, so very wrong, in saying so!’ she exclaimed passionately. ‘You may doubt my wisdom, pity my short-sightedness; but there is one thing you do know,—that I love you dearly!’
‘You do,—I know it!’ he said, softened in a moment. ‘But it seems such a simple remedy for the difficulty that I cannot see how you can mind adopting it, if you care so much for me as I do for you.’
‘Should we live . . . just as we are, exactly, . . . supposing I agreed?’ she faintly inquired.
‘Yes, that is my idea.’
‘Quite privately, you say. How could—the marriage be quite private?’
‘I would go away to London and get a license. Then you could come to me, and return again immediately after the ceremony. I could return at leisure and not a soul in the world would know what had taken place. Think, dearest, with what a free conscience you could then assist me in my efforts to plumb these deeps above us! Any feeling that you may now have against clandestine meetings as such would then be removed, and our hearts would be at rest.’
There was a certain scientific practicability even in his love-making, and it here came out excellently. But she sat on with suspended breath, her heart wildly beating, while he waited in open-mouthed expectation. Each was swayed by the emotion within them, much as the candle-flame was swayed by the tempest without. It was the most critical evening of their lives.