She dropped her hands, and the water went splashing back into the stream; and, smiling still, she came nearer until she was beside him upon the rock, her wet feet glistening silver upon its greenish-brown surface. Her eyes held fast his wide, frightened stare.
“Why?” she asked him, when she was so close that he was aware of the warmth and fragrance of her person.
He answered her steadily:
“I will not, that’s why. I must not. I have told you I must not, every day that I have come here, and yet I have always drunk this water. It has made me less than a man. It has made me break my word and my own rules.”
Once more her eyes were grave. “You must not?” she asked. Her voice might have been that of the purring shallows. There was no escaping her gaze, and before it his eyes wavered and shifted. His shoulders drooped.
“You will not?” the purring voice went on. “Not for me, and you say you love me? It is so little that I ask.”
There was pain in his voice as he cried, “Don’t ... Sadie! I have promised ... the rule....”
It was she whose figure drooped now, and her face that was mournful. “But you have broken the rules before this for me,” she murmured.
“I came today to say that I would no more.”
“But it is so little I ask. And I—am—yours.”