in her face, with no contortion, no grimace, but with her eyes fixed upon his.  ’How should it be possible that I should not love you?  For two months we have been together as people seldom are in the world,—­as they never can be without hating each other or loving each other thoroughly.  You have been very good to me who am all alone and desolate.  And you are clever, educated,—­and a man.  How should I not love you?  And I know from the touch of your hand, from your breath when I feel it on my face, from the fire of your eye, and from the tenderness of your mouth, that you, too, love me.’

‘I do,’ he said.

’But as there may be marriage without love, so there may be love without marriage.  You cannot but feel how little you know of me, and ignorant as you are of so much, that to marry me might be—­ruin.’  It was just what he had told himself over and over again, when he had been trying to resolve what he would do in regard to her.  ‘Don’t you know that?’

‘I know that it might have been so among the connections of home life.’

’And to you the connections of home life may all come back.  That woman talked about your “roll of ancestors.”  Coming from her it was absurd.  But there was some truth in it.  You know that were you to marry me, say to-morrow, in Melbourne, it would shut you out from—­well, not the possibility but the probability of return.’

‘I do not want to go back.’

’Nor do I want to hinder you from doing so.  If we were alike desolate, alike alone, alike cast out, oh then, what a heaven of happiness I should think had been opened to me by the idea of joining myself to you!  There is nothing I could not do for you.  But I will not be a millstone round your neck.’

She had taken so much the more prominent part in all this that he felt himself compelled by his manliness to say something in contradiction to it—­something that should have the same flavour about it as had her self-abnegation and declared passion.  He also must be unselfish and enthusiastic.  ‘I do not deny that there is truth in what you say.’

‘It is true.’

‘Of course I love you.’

‘It ought to be of course,—­now.’

’And of course I do not mean to part from you now, as though we were never to see each other again.’

‘I hope not quite that.’

’Certainly not.  I shall therefore hold you as engaged to me, and myself as engaged to you,—­unless something should occur to separate us.’  It was a foolish thing to say, but he did not know how to speak without being foolish.  It is not usual that a gentleman should ask a lady to be engaged to him ‘—­unless something should occur to separate them!’ ’You will consent to that,’ he said.

’What I will consent to is this, that I will be yours, all yours, whenever you may choose to send for me.  At any moment I will be your wife for the asking.  But you shall go away first, and shall think of it, and reflect upon it,—­so that I may not have to reproach myself with having caught you.’