“What were you planning, then?”
“The future.”
“Whose?”
“Oh, my own and Ida’s.”
“And was I included in your joint futures?
“I hope all our friends were included.”
“Don’t go in,” said he, as she began to move slowly towards the house. “I wanted to have a word. Let us stroll up and down the lawn. Perhaps you are cold. If you are, I could bring you out a shawl.”
“Oh, no, I am not cold.”
“I was speaking to your sister Ida last night. She noticed that there was a slight quiver in his voice, and, glancing up at his dark, clear-cut face, she saw that he was very grave. She felt that it was settled, that he had come to ask her for her sister’s hand.
“She is a charming girl,” said he, after a pause.
“Indeed she is,” cried Clara warmly. “And no one who has not lived with her and known her intimately can tell how charming and good she is. She is like a sunbeam in the house.”
“No one who was not good could be so absolutely happy as she seems to be. Heaven’s last gift, I think, is a mind so pure and a spirit so high that it is unable even to see what is impure and evil in the world around us. For as long as we can see it, how can we be truly happy?”
“She has a deeper side also. She does not turn it to the world, and it is not natural that she should, for she is very young. But she thinks, and has aspirations of her own.”
“You cannot admire her more than I do. Indeed, Miss Walker, I only ask to be brought into nearer relationship with her, and to feel that there is a permanent bond between us.”
It had come at last. For a moment her heart was numbed within her, and then a flood of sisterly love carried all before it. Down with that dark thought which would still try to raise its unhallowed head! She turned to Harold with sparkling eyes and words of pleasure upon her lips.
“I should wish to be near and dear to both of you,” said he, as he took her hand. “I should wish Ida to be my sister, and you my wife.”
She said nothing. She only stood looking at him with parted lips and great, dark, questioning eyes. The lawn had vanished away, the sloping gardens, the brick villas, the darkening sky with half a pale moon beginning to show over the chimney-tops. All was gone, and she was only conscious of a dark, earnest, pleading face, and of a voice, far away, disconnected from herself, the voice of a man telling a woman how he loved her. He was unhappy, said the voice, his life was a void; there was but one thing that could save him; he had come to the parting of the ways, here lay happiness and honor, and all that was high and noble; there lay the soul-killing round, the lonely life, the base pursuit of money, the sordid, selfish aims. He needed but the hand of the woman that he loved to lead him into the better path. And how he loved her his life would show. He loved her for her sweetness, for her womanliness, for her strength. He had need of her. Would she not come to him? And then of a sudden as she listened it came home to her that the man was Harold Denver, and that she was the woman, and that all God’s work was very beautiful–the green sward beneath her feet, the rustling leaves, the long orange slashes in the western sky. She spoke; she scarce knew what the broken words were, but she saw the light of joy shine out on his face, and her hand was still in his as they wandered amid the twilight. They said no more now, but only wandered and felt each other’s presence. All was fresh around them, familiar and yet new, tinged with the beauty of their new-found happiness.
“Did you not know it before?” he asked. “I did not dare to think it.”