Her temper vanished like a flash of summer lightning. ‘Oh, do please take me back!’ she said, looking at him with a pitiful appeal in her eyes. Like many town-bred girls, she had an unconquerable dread of water.
‘You are just as safe here as on shore, so long as you sit still,’ he answered re-assuringly. And with that he changed his seat and went and sat down close in front of her.
The colour began to return to her cheeks. He looked so strong and brave and handsome as he sat there, that she felt ashamed of her fears. What harm could happen to her while he was there to protect her!
‘Look here, Bella,’ he presently began; ‘where’s the use of you and I beating any longer about the bush? I must have a distinct answer from you to-day, Yes or No, whether you will promise to become my wife or whether you won’t. You know that I love you, just as well as if I told you so a thousand times. You know that my love is the genuine article, that there’s nothing sham or pinchbeck about it. Your own heart has told you that before to-day. There’s something else, too, that it has told you.’ He paused.
‘Indeed!’ she said, thrusting out her saucy chin a little way. ‘And what may that be, if you please?’ Her spirit was coming back. She was not inclined to strike her colours without a struggle.
‘It has told you that you love me,’ he answered slowly and deliberately, still looking straight into her eyes.
She was silent for a moment. A little spot of deepest red flashed into each of her cheeks. ‘Indeed, sir, you are mistaken,’ she answered with a sort of supercilious politeness. ‘I am not aware that my heart has told me anything of the kind.’
‘Then it’s high time it did tell you,’ was the cool rejoinder. ‘You love me, Bella, whether you know it or not, and the best of it is that you can’t help yourself.’
‘Oh! this is too much,’ she cried, and again she half-started to her feet. The boat rocked a little.
‘You seem to have made up your mind for a ducking,’ said Dick, although in reality there was not the slightest danger. Next moment she was as still as a mouse.