'Of course I do,' she answered: 'what an odd question that is for you to ask!'
'Because,' said he, 'sometimes I almost doubt it. It seems to me as though you thought you could remove yourself from here to your new home with no more trouble than when you go from home up to the Colne.'
'Is that meant for a reproach, John?'
'No, not for a reproach, but for advice. Certainly not for a reproach.'
'I am glad of that.'
'But I should wish to make you think how great is the leap in the world which you are about to take.' Then again they walked on for many steps before she answered him.
'Tell me, then, John,' she said, when she had sufficiently considered what words she would speak;—and as she spoke a dark bright colour suffused her face, and her eyes flashed almost with anger. 'What leap do you mean? Do you mean a leap upwards?'
'Well, yes; I hope it will be so.'
'In one sense, certainly, it would be a leap upwards. To be the wife of the man I loved; to have the privilege of holding his happiness in my hand; to know that I was his own—the companion whom he had chosen out of all the world—that would, indeed, be a leap upward; a leap almost to heaven, if all that were so. But if you mean upwards in any other sense—'
'I was thinking of the social scale.'