"Do you not see," said Marlow, "how it is blown about by the softest breath, which stirs not the less sensitive things around, how it is carried by any passing air now into bright hopeful light, now into dim melancholy shadow?"
"And is that like love?" asked Emily. "I should have thought it was all brightness."
"Ay, happy love—love returned," replied Marlow, "but where there is uncertainty, a doubt, there hope and fear make alternately the light and shade of love, and the lightest breath will bear the heart from the one extreme to the other—I know it from the experience of the last three days, Emily; for since last we met I too have fluctuated between the light and shade. Your father's consent has given a momentary gleam of hope, but it is only you who can make the light permanent."
Emily shook, and her eyes were bent down upon the water; but she remained silent so long that Marlow became even more agitated than herself. "I know not what I feel," she murmured at length,—"it is very strange."
"But hear me, Emily," said Marlow, taking her unresisting hand, "I do not ask an immediate answer to my suit. If you regard me with any favor—if I am not perfectly indifferent to you, let me try to improve any kindly feelings in your heart towards me in the bright hope of winning you at last for my own, my wife. The uncertainty may be painful—must be painful; but—"
"No, no, Marlow," cried Emily, raising her eyes to his face for an instant with her cheek all glowing, "there must be no uncertainty. Do you think I would keep you—you, in such a painful state as you have mentioned? Heaven forbid!"
"Then what am I to think?" asked Marlow, pressing closer to her side and gliding his arm round her. "I am almost mad to dream of such happiness, and yet your tone, your look, my Emily, make me so rash. Tell me then—tell me at once, am I to hope or to despair?—Will you be mine?"
"Of course," she answered, "can you doubt it?"
"I can almost doubt my senses," said Marlow; but he had no occasion to doubt them.
They sat there for nearly half an hour; they then wandered on, with marvellous meanderings in their course, for more than an hour and a half more, and when they returned, Emily knew more of love than ever could be learned from books. Marlow drew her feelings forth and gave them definite form and consistency. He presented them to her by telling what he himself felt in a plain and tangible shape, which required no long reverie—none of their deep fits of thoughtfulness to investigate and comprehend. From the rich store of his own imagination, and the treasury of deep feeling in his breast, he poured forth illustrations that brightened as if with sunshine every sensation which had been dark and mysterious in her bosom before; and ere they turned their steps back towards the house, Emily believed—nay, she felt; and that is much more—that without knowing it, she had loved him long.