She could hardly see his face, but she could feel the passion in his voice and touch. Her Cheek seemed to droop against his arm. He felt her tottering.
'Let me sit down,' she said; and after one moment of dizzy silence he guided her to a rock, sinking down himself beside her, longing, but not daring, to shelter her under his broad Inverness cloak against the storm.
'I told you,' she said, almost whispering, 'that I was bound, tied to others.'
'I do not admit your plea,' he said passionately; 'no, not for a moment. For two days have I been tramping over the mountains thinking it out for yourself and me. Catherine, your mother has no son, she would find one in me. I have no sisters--give me yours. I will cherish them as any brother could. Come and enrich my life; you shall still fill and shelter theirs. I dare not think what my future might be without you to guide, to inspire, to bless--dare not--lest with a word you should plunge me into an outer darkness I cannot face.'
He caught her unresisting hand, and raised it to his lips.
'Is there no sacredness,' he said, brokenly, 'in the fate that has brought us together-out of all the world--here in this lonely valley? Come to me, Catherine. You shall never fail the old ties, I promise you; and new hands shall cling to you--new voices shall call you blessed.'
Catherine could hardly breathe. Every word had been like balm upon a wound--like a ray of intense light in the gloom about them. Oh, where was this softness bearing her--this emptiness of all will, of all individual power? She hid her eyes with her other hand, struggling to recall that far away moment in Marrisdale. But the mind refused to work. Consciousness seemed to retain nothing but the warm grasp of his hand--the tones of his voice.
He saw her struggle, and pressed on remorselessly.
'Speak to me--say one little kind word. Oh, you cannot send me away miserable and empty!'
She turned to him, and laid her trembling free hand on his arm. He clasped them both with rapture.
'No, no,' he said, and it almost seemed to her that he was smiling: 'time for you to escape me again my wild mountain bird; time for you to think yourself and me into all sorts of moral mists! No, you shall not have it. Here--alone with God and the dark--bless me or undo me. Send me out to the work of life maimed and sorrowful, or send me out your knight, your possession, pledged--'