Almost, I wish he would speak--if he
_does_ love me. And _I_ know he does."
But he lay reading the fancies she had written about the forest, and she
could not guess how he was summoning his courage, as a general, surprised,
summons his forces to battle. She did not know how deep was his humility
in thoughts of her, any more than she realized how utterly her first
point of view had changed toward him, the "forest creature," the
"interesting, picturesque figure." So entirely was he a man, and the one
man, that she had forgotten her old impersonal frame of mind.
He came to the last sentence in the book, broken short, where her pencil
had stopped of itself.
"Thank you," he said. "I'm glad you feel those things about the forest.
It's always been like that to me--sacred. If anything great and wonderful
were to happen, I'd rather have it happen here than anywhere else. Would
you?"
_Yes, it was coming!_ Suddenly she half wanted it to come--this crisis in
their lives; yet something made her push it away, just for a little while;
not to have the end quite so soon, no matter how beautiful an end.
"Oh, wait!" she exclaimed. "Don't let's talk of ourselves yet--not for a
few minutes. Wait with me, and neither of us will say one word till the
sun has set and the light has changed.
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