“Dearest!” he murmured, reproachfully, and with something like awe, for her brows were knit, her face was pale as ivory, and her eyes glowed.  “Why do you say this now, just as—­as we have confessed our love for each other?  Do you think I shall be faithless?  I could almost laugh!  As if any man you deigned to love could ever forget you, ever care a straw for any other woman!”

She turned to him with a shudder, a little cry that was tragic in its intensity, turned to him and clenched her small hands on his breast.

“Swear to me!” she panted; then, as if ashamed of the passion that racked her, her eyes dropped and the swift red flooded her face.  “No! you shall not swear to me, Stafford.  I—­I will believe you love me as I shall love you forever and forever!  But if—­if the time should come when some other girl shall win you from me, promise me that you will not tell me, that you will just keep away from me!  I could bear it if—­if I did not see you; but if I saw you—­Oh!”—­something like a moan escaped her quivering lips, and she flung herself upon his breast with the abandon, the unself-consciousness of a child.

Stafford was moved to his inmost heart, and for a moment, as he held her within the embrace of his strong arms, he could not command his voice sufficiently for speech.  At last he murmured, his lips seeking hers: 

“Ida!  I swear that I will love you forever and forever!”

“But—­but—­if you break your vow, you promise that you will not come to me—­tell me?  I shall know.  Promise, ah, promise!”

“Will nothing less content you?  Must I?” he said, almost desperate at her persistence.  “Then I promise, Ida!”

CHAPTER XIX.

There is something solemn and awe-inspiring in perfect happiness.

How many times in the day did Ida pull up Rupert and gaze into the distance with vacant, unseeing eyes, pause in the middle of some common task, look up from the book she was trying to read, to ask herself whether she was indeed the same girl who had lived her lonely life at Herondale, or whether she had changed places with some other personality, with some girl singularly blessed amongst women.

Jessie and Jason, even the bovine William, who was reputed the stupidest man in the dale, noticed the change in her, noticed the touch of colour that was so quick to mount to the ivory cheek, the novel brightness and tenderness in the deep grey eyes, the new note, the low, sweet tone of happiness in the clear voice.  Her father only remained unobservant of the subtle change, but he was like a mole burrowing amongst his book and gloating secretly over the box which he concealed at the approach of footsteps, the opening of a door, and the sound of a voice in a distant part of the house.