“Yes, always,” I said. “Until I die.”
“Ah! Don’t speak of death,” she whispered. “If you died, I—I should die also, Geoffrey. I could not live without you. How I have endured these dark, weary weeks I scarcely know.”
Together we remained a long time, while I reproached myself for entertaining suspicion that her friendliness with Dudley or with Beck was anything but platonic, declaring that my love had ever been unwavering, that my recent actions had been due to a mad and unjust jealousy for which I craved her forgiveness.
With her eyes still wet she told me how fondly she had always loved me, and urged me to think no more of the strange events that had led to Dudley’s tragic end.
“It is my duty to ascertain the truth and clear up the mystery,” she said. “I have promised you a solution of the enigma, and you shall have it some day.”
“For the present, dearest, I am content to wait,” I answered, and in the same breath repeated the question I had asked her months ago—whether she would be my wife.
“Alas! I fear you do not trust me sufficiently, Geoffrey,” she answered in a low, intense tone, tears still welling in her blue eyes.
“I do,” I cried. “I know that all the time I have been a jealously brutal fool you have loved me as truly as ever.”
“I told you long ago that I loved you,” she answered earnestly.
“Yes, I believe it now, darling,” I said. “That is why I ask you to become my wife. Tell me once more that you will.” In a whisper, as her handsome head pillowed itself upon, my arm, she repeated her promise, then burst into a torrent of tears, while I, in joyful ecstasy, still held her in my arms.