“And you will always.” He took her hand and kissed it. “My beautiful lady, you are mine, _mine_. How can I be glad enough?”
“I trust you. I do not want you to kiss me.”
“Yes, peace. Oh! my dearest, with you, peace.”
He rose from her side. She let her hands go over the keys, playing snatches of things. The prelude to tea appeared, the table and the cloth.
Mr. Wainbridge walked to the window, and Launa was playing “Warum.” “Das bange bittere Warum,” with its ceaseless unanswered questions. It was one of the things she had always played and felt she had not understood. Through what a century of emotions she had gone, and “Warum” brought her back. She understood it now as she never had done before.
She had been drifting down a rapid quiet stream, hurrying past the old landmarks, soothed by the swift dark water, lulled by its swirl, and rush, comforted by Mr. Wainbridge’s care of her and for her. Now she was out on the sea, the broad sea of love, with its indefiniteness. She had awakened with a start to find herself there; to know that he loved her and wanted to marry her, and she also knew that to turn back was impossible.
“I am so happy, my darling,” he said, turning round as he spoke. “I have loved you for so long, and I have feared.”
“I feared you. That you did not care, and you do not care as I do.”
“No,” she replied; “I do not, I cannot care as you do. Why is it? I want to, and I want to remember only you. Only I can’t, I can’t.”
“You do not want to remember the old life?”
“I want to forget everything, everyone. Listen, I must tell you—I don’t want to marry you, because I cannot bear it, because I’ve once loved—” she stopped; he waited—“I once loved someone else. I think he is dead to me—but I know if he were to call me I would go, even if I married you and he came. I have forgotten him sometimes, but it all comes back again and again.”
“I will make you love me—he is dead; he will never come. You will marry me, you will? Promise—you can’t draw back now.”
“I promise to marry you? I cannot forget so soon—”
“How are you?” cried Launa, with joy. An interruption just then was most convenient. “You have not been here for so long.”
Mr. Wainbridge could have borne a longer absence with philosophy. He gave Mrs. Herbert one glance, and looked again. She was looking handsome and flushed, yet the emotion which plainly affected her savoured not of joy nor of peace.