'I have loved you from the first.'
'How is that possible?' he urged. 'What is there lovable in me? I
am afraid of waking up and finding myself in my old garret, cold
and hungry.'
'You will be a great man.'
'I implore you not to count on that! In many ways I am wretchedly
weak. I have no such confidence in myself.'
'Then I will have confidence for both.'
'But can you love me for my own sake--love me as a man?'
'I love you!'
And the words sang about him, filled the air with a mad pulsing
of intolerable joy, made him desire to fling himself in
passionate humility at her feet, to weep hot tears, to cry to her
in insane worship. He thought her beautiful beyond anything his
heart had imagined; her warm gold hair was the rapture of his
eyes and of his reverent hand. Though slenderly fashioned, she
was so gloriously strong. 'Not a day of illness in her life,'
said Mrs Yule, and one could readily believe it.
She spoke with such a sweet decision. Her 'I love you!' was a
bond with eternity. In the simplest as in the greatest things she
saw his wish and acted frankly upon it.
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