"You're right," he assented, grimly. "Once I got you, no power on earth
should make me let you go again."
Her lips quivered and her eyes drooped before his. How strange a thing
this love was, that it should change a man so!
"I don't want to force you to answer," he said, after a pause. "Yes, I
do! I'd give half the remainder of my life to hear you say the one
word, 'yes.' But I won't. It's too--too precious. Ah, don't you
understand! I want your love, your love, Ida!"
"Yes, I understand," she murmured. "And--and I would say it if--if I
were sure. But I--yes, I am all confused. It is like a dream. I want to
think, to ask myself if--if I can do what you want."
She put up her hand to her lips with a slight gesture, as if to keep
them from trembling.
"I want to be alone to think of all--all you have told me."
Her gauntlet slipped from her hand, and he knelt on one knee and picked
it up, and still kneeling, took both her hands in his. It did not occur
to him to remember that the woman who hesitates is won; something in
her girlish innocence, in her exquisitely sweet candour, filled him
with awe.
"Dearest!" he said, in so low a voice that, the note of the curlew
flying above them sounded loud and shrill by contrast. "Dearest!--for
you are that to me!--I will not press you. I will be content to wait.
God knows you are right to hesitate! Your love is too great, too
precious a thing to be given to me without thought. I'm not worthy to
touch you--but I love you! I will wait. You shall think of all I have
said; and, let your answer be what it may, I won't complain!
But--Ida--you mustn't forget that I love you with all my heart and
soul!"
She looked down at his handsome face, the face over which her lips had
hovered only a short time since, and her lips moved.
"You--you are good to me," she said, in a faintly troubled voice. "Yes,
I know, I feel that. Perhaps I ought to say 'no!'"
"Don't!" he said, almost fiercely. "Wait! Let me see you again--you
scarcely know me. Ah, Ida, what can I do, how can I win your love?"
She drew her hands from his with a deep breath.
"I--I will go now," she said. "Will you let me go--alone?"