When we had come back from dinner Uncle Eb drew off his boots and sat comfortably in his stocking feet while Hope told of her travels and I of my soldiering.  She had been at the Conservatory, nearly the whole period of her absence, and hastened home when she learned of the battle and of my wound.  She had landed two days before.

Hope’s friend and Uncle Eb went away to their rooms in good season.  Then I came and sat beside Hope on the sofa.

‘Let’s have a good talk,’ I said.

There was an awkward bit of silence.

‘Well,’ said she, her fan upon her lips, ’tell me more about the war.

‘Tired of war,’ I answered; ’love is a better subject.

She rose and walked up and down the room, a troubled look in her face.  I thought I had never seen a woman who could carry her head so proudly.

‘I don’t think you are very familiar with it,’ said she presently.

‘I ought to be,’ I answered, ’having loved you all these years.

‘But you told me that — that you loved another girl,’ she said, her elbow leaning on the mantel, her eyes looking down soberly.

‘When?  Where?’ I asked.

‘In Mrs Fuller’s parlour.’

‘Hope,’ I said, ’you misunderstood me; I meant you.

She came toward me, then, looking up into my eyes.  I started to embrace her but she caught my hands and held them apart and came close to me.

‘Did you say that you meant me?’ she asked in a whisper.

‘I did.’

’Why did you not tell me that night?

’Because you would not listen to me and we were interrupted.

‘Well if I loved a girl,’ she said, ‘I’d make her listen.’

‘I would have done that but Mrs Fuller saved you.’

‘You might have written,’ she suggested in a tone of injury.

‘I did.’

‘And the letter never came — just as I feared.’

She looked very sober and thoughtful then.

‘You know our understanding that day in the garden,’ she added.  ’If you did not ask me again I was to know you — you did not love me any longer.  That was long, long ago.

‘I never loved any girl but you,’ I said.  ’I love you now, Hope, and that is enough — I love you so there is nothing else for me.  You are dearer than my life.  It was the thought of you that made me brave in battle.  I wish I could be as brave here.  But I demand your surrender — I shall give you no quarter now.

‘I wish I knew,’ she said, ’whether — whether you really love me or not?

’Don’t you believe me, Hope?

‘Yes, I believe you,’ she said, ’but — but you might not know your own heart.

‘It longs for you,’ I said, ’it keeps me thinking of you always.  Once it was so easy to be happy; since you have been away it has seemed as if there were no longer any light in the world or any pleasure.  It has made me a slave.  I did not know that love was such a mighty thing.