"'Tom--Tom dear! I will say it, for we shall be parted soon, and then, if I am alive, I shall be comforted a little to think that I did say it! Listen--Tom dear, I love you! Never forget that I said it--Tom, I love you!'
"I was taken deliciously by surprise. You must not expect me to tell how I felt or what I said. I can only remember that I took her in my arms and kissed her. The bird that warbled over our heads seemed to utter the ecstasy that I felt.
"Presently we began to move on again. I don't know why I didn't speak; perhaps I thought that our kiss had been the seal of her surrender, and that therefore words were for the moment impertinent; by-and-by the converse would be renewed from a fresh basis. Besides, my thoughts were flying too fast, just then, for speech to overtake them. I was thinking how singular had been the manner and progress of our acquaintance. It was scarcely in accordance with what I believed to be my normal temperament and disposition to plunge so abruptly and almost recklessly into a new order and responsibility of life. I had fancied myself too cautious, too cool-headed, for such an impulsive act. But it was done, and the fact that Kate's feelings had responded to my own seemed to justify the apparent risk. We were meant for each other, and had come together in sheer despite of all combinations of circumstances to keep us apart. Knowing, as we did, scarcely anything of each other as worldly knowledge goes, we had yet felt that inward instinct and obligation to union which made the most thorough worldly knowledge look like folly. What would my mother say to it? How would the news be relished by her father? I cared not; I foresaw difficulties enough in store, but none that appalled me. After all, an honourable man and woman, honestly in love with each other, are a match against the world, or superior to it. Union is strength, and the union of loving hearts is the strongest strength of all.
"'And do you want to marry me really, Tom?'
"We had gained the summit of the steep hill, and were now pacing along the ridge. The narrow winding valley lay sheer beneath us on the right, with the white road and the dark stream lying side by side at the bottom of it. The crest of the opposing hillside seemed but a short stone's-throw distant; the aroma of our privacy was the sweeter for the pigmy droschkey, with its mannikin inmate, which was crawling along through the dust so far below. We commanded the world, while we were ourselves hidden from it.