She turned away from him hastily, but not before he had seen, and the sight was too much for him.
A man can never endure to see a woman in tears, and most particularly not a woman whom he loves.
One quick step forward, an extension of the arms, and she was taken to his breast.
"I know that I am a criminal to tell you of my love while that poor girl lies dead in that dreadful place!" he exclaimed, contritely. "But what am I to do? The temptation has overpowered me. After all, she never loved me, and she knew that I did not love her, therefore the circumstances cannot be the same. Leonie, darling, I do not ask if you will be my wife, because I know you will! You have never endeavored to conceal from me that you love me, and through all the wretched past that has been my single consolation. Tell me that I have not been wrong, sweetheart!"
She was weeping softly, but they were tears of relief.
"Why did you wish to distress me about the will when you knew that it would be compromised in that way?" she asked, a little smile rippling through the tears. "Oh, Lynde, it has been such weary, hopeless waiting. I cannot realize that there are really no barriers between us now. There was a time when I would rather have died than have you know the shame that rested upon my mother's name, but after all the fault was not hers, and it would seem to me now that concealment meant shame upon her memory. Tell me that you do not despise me for it, dear?"
He laughed a little, holding her all the closer.
"Do I look as though I despised you for anything, or could despise you for anything under God's heaven?" he asked tenderly. "My darling, you have come to me through grief and suffering, but you are mine at last, thank Heaven, and all the more precious because of the waiting and the misery."
She lifted her face and allowed him to kiss her after the weary restraint of months.
In that kiss, they seemed to live again through the weary, hideous time that had intervened since their meeting, and it was with a thankfulness to God that neither of them could have expressed that they realized it was over and done with forever.