“Mr. Fulkerson,” said the girl, solemnly, “Ah will stand bah you in this, if all the woald tones against you.” The tears came into her eyes, and she put out her hand to him.
“You will?” he shouted, in a rapture. “In every way—and always—as long as you live? Do you mean it?” He had caught her hand to his breast and was grappling it tight there and drawing her to him.
The changing emotions chased one another through her heart and over her face: dismay, shame, pride, tenderness. “You don't believe,” she said, hoarsely, “that Ah meant that?”
“No, but I hope you do mean it; for if you don't, nothing else means anything.”
There was no space, there was only a point of wavering. “Ah do mean it.”
When they lifted their eyes from each other again it was half-past ten. “No' you most go,” she said.
“But the colonel—our fate?”
“The co'nel is often oat late, and Ah'm not afraid of ouah fate, no' that we've taken it into ouah own hands.” She looked at him with dewy eyes of trust, of inspiration.
“Oh, it's going to come out all right,” he said. “It can't come out wrong now, no matter what happens. But who'd have thought it, when I came into this house, in such a state of sin and misery, half an hour ago—”
“Three houahs and a half ago!” she said. “No! you most jost go. Ah'm tahed to death. Good-night. You can come in the mawning to see—papa.” She opened the door and pushed him out with enrapturing violence, and he ran laughing down the steps into her father's arms.